"The past is dead and gone, my girl. We've got the future; it's ours."
She gently disengaged herself from his detaining hand and went over to the little window, looking out with eyes that saw other pictures than the window had to show.
"One never knows when one's well off, does one? It's madness to think of what's gone forever."
For several minutes there was silence, during which Nora recovered her self-control. Having wiped away her tears, she turned hack to him, smiling bravely. "I beg your pardon. You'll think me more foolish than I really am. I'm not the crying sort, I assure you. But I don't know, it all----"
"That's all right, I know you're not," he said roughly. "I wish we'd got a good drop of liquor here," he went on with the evident intention of changing the current of her thoughts, "so as we could drink one another's health. But as we ain't, you'd better give me a kiss instead."
"I'm not at all fond of kissing," said Nora coolly.
Frank grinned at her, his pipe stuck between his white teeth.
"It ain't, generally speaking, an acquired taste. I guess you must be peculiar."
"It looks like it," she said lightly.
"Come, my girl," he said, getting slowly up from his stool, "you didn't even kiss me after we was married."
"Isn't a hint enough for you?"--her tone was perfectly friendly. "Why do you insist on my saying everything in so many words? Why make me dot my i's and cross my t's, so to speak?"
"It seems to me it wants a few words to make it plain when a woman refuses to give her husband a kiss."
"Do sit down, there's a good fellow, and I'll tell you one or two things."
"That's terribly kind of you," he said, sinking into the rocker. "Have you any choice of seats?"
"Not now, since you've taken the only one that's tolerably comfortable. I think there's nothing to choose between the others."
"Nothing, I should say."
"I think we'd better fix things up before we go any further," she said, resuming her stool.
"Sure."
"You gave me to understand very plainly that you wanted a wife in order to get a general servant without having to pay her wages. Wages are high, here in Canada."
"That was the way you put it."
"Batching isn't very comfortable, you'll confess that?"
"I'll confess that, all right."
"You wanted someone to cook and bake for you, wash, sweep and mend. I offered to come and do all that for you. It never entered my head for an instant that there was any possibility of your expecting anything else of me."
"Then you're a damned fool, my girl."
He was perfectly good-natured. She would have preferred him to be a little angry. She would know how to cope with that, she thought. But she flared up a little herself.
"D'you mind not saying things like that to me?"
His smile widened. "I guess I'll have to say a good many things like that--or worse--before we've done."
"I asked you to marry me only because I couldn't stay in the shack otherwise."
"You asked me to marry you because you was in the hell of a temper," he retorted. "You were mad clean through. You wanted to get away from Ed's farm right then and there and you didn't care what you did so long as you quit. But you was darned sorry for what you'd done by the time you'd got your trunk packed."
"I don't know that you have any reason for thinking that," she said stiffly.
"I've got sense. Besides, when you opened the door when I went up and knocked, you was as white as a sheet. You'd have given anything you had to say you'd changed your mind, but your damned pride wouldn't let you."
"I wouldn't have stayed longer in that house for anything in the world," said Nora with passion.
"There you are; that's just what I have been telling you," he said, nodding his head. "And this morning, when I came for you at the Y. W. C. A., you wanted bad to say you wouldn't marry me. When you shook hands with me your hand was like ice. You tried to speak the words, but they wouldn't come."
"After all, one isn't married every day of one's life, is one? I admit I was nervous for the moment."
"If I hadn't shown you the license and the ring, I guess you wouldn't have done it. You hadn't the nerve to back out of it then."
"I hadn't slept a wink all night. I kept on turning it over in my mind. I was frightened at what I'd done. I didn't know a soul in Winnipeg. I hadn't anywhere to go. I had four dollars in my pocket. I had to go on with it."
"Well, you took pretty good stock of me in the train on the way here, I guess," he laughed, pacing up and down the room.
"What makes you think so?" asked Nora, who had recovered her coolness.
"Well, I felt you was looking at me a good deal while I was asleep," he jeered. "It wasn't hard to see that you was turning me over in your mind. What conclusion did you come to?"
Nora evaded the question for the moment.
"You see, I lived all these years with an old lady. I know very little about men."
"I guessed that."
"I came to the conclusion that you were a decent fellow and I thought you would be kind to me."
"Bouquets are just flying round! Have you got anything more to say to me?" he asked, seating himself once more in his chair.
"No, I think not."
"Then just get me my tobacco pouch, will you? I guess you'll find it in the pocket of my coat."
With narrowed eyes, he watched her first hesitate, and then bring it to him.
"Here you are." Her tone was crisp.
"I thought you was going to tell me I could darned well get it myself," he laughed.
"I don't very much like to be ordered about," she said smoothly; "I didn't realize it was one of your bad habits."
"You never paid much attention to me or my habits till to-day, I reckon."
"I was always polite to you."
"Oh, very! But I was the hired man, and you'd never let me forget it. You thought yourself a darned sight better than me, because you could play the piano and speak French. But we ain't got a piano and there ain't anyone as speaks French nearer than Winnipeg."
"I don't just see what you're driving at."
"Parlor tricks ain't much good on the prairie. They're like dollar bills up in Hudson Bay country. Tobacco's the only thing you can trade with an Esquimaux. You can't cook very well, you don't know how to milk a cow; why, you can't even harness a horse."
"Are you regretting your bargain already?"
"No," he said, going over to the shelf in search of the matches, "I guess I can teach you. But if I was you"--he paused, the lighted match in his fingers, to look at her--"I wouldn't put on any airs. We'll get on O. K., I guess, when we've shaken down."
"You'll find I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she said with emphasis, speaking each word slowly. She returned his steady gaze and felt a thrill of victory when he looked away.
"When two people live in a shack," he went on as if she had not spoken, "there's got to be a deal of give and take on both sides. As long as you do what I tell you you'll be all right."
A sort of an angry smile crossed Nora's face.
"It's unfortunate that when anyone tells me to do a thing, I have an irresistible desire not to do it."
"I guess I tumbled to that. You must get over it."
"You've spoken to me once or twice in a way I don't like. I think we shall get on better if you ask me to do things."
"Don't forget that I can make you do them," he said brutally.
"How?" Really, he was amusing!
"Well, I'm stronger than you are."
"A man can hardly use force in his dealings with a woman," she reminded him.
"O-o-o-oh?"
"You seem surprised."
"What's going to prevent him?"
"Don't be so silly," she retorted as she turned to look once more out of the window. But her hands were clammy and, somehow, even though her back was turned toward him, she knew that he was smiling.
CHAPTER XIII
How much time elapsed before he spoke she had no means of knowing; probably, at most, two or three minutes. But to the woman gazing out blindly through the cobweb-covered window into the night, it might well have been hours. For some illogical reason, which she could not have explained to herself, she had the feeling that the victory in the coming struggle would lie with the one who kept silent the longer. To break the nerve-wrecking spell would be a betrayal of weakness.
None the less, she had arrived at the point when, the tension on her own nerves becoming too great, she felt she must scream, drive her clenched hand through the glass of the window, or perform some other act of hysterical violence; then he spoke, and in the ordinary tone of daily life.
"Well, I'm going to unpack my grip."
The tone, together with the commonplace words, had the effect of a cold douche. She drew a sharp breath of relief, her hands unclenched. She was herself once more. She'd won.
She turned slowly, as if reluctant to abandon the starry prospect without, to find him bending over a clutter of things scattered about his half-emptied case. She had been about to say that she must see to unpacking some of her own things.
"Wash up them things." He jerked his bowed head toward the littered table.
For the first time, his tone was curt.
But she was too much mistress of herself and the situation now to be more than faintly annoyed by it.
"I'll wash them up in the morning," she said casually. She started toward the door behind which her box had been carried.
"Wash 'em up now, my girl. You'll find the only way to keep things clean is to wash 'em the moment you've done with 'em."
She smiled at him over her shoulder, her hand on the knob of the door. But she did not move.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"I did."
"Then why don't you do as I tell you?"
"Because I don't choose to."
"You ain't taking long to try it out, are you?" His face wore an ugly sneer.
"They say there's no time like the present."
"Are you going to wash up them things?"
"No."
There was a moment's silence while he held her eyes with his. Then, very slowly and deliberately he got up, poured some boiling water into a pan and placed it, together with a ragged dishcloth, on the table.
"Are you going to wash up them things?"
"No."
She was still cool and smiling: only, her grip on the knob of the door had tightened until the nails of her fingers were white.
"Do you want me to make you?"
"How can you do that?"
"I'll soon show you."
She waited the fraction of a moment.
"I'll just get out those rugs, shall I? I think the holdall was put in here. I expect it gets very cold toward morning."
She had opened the door now and stepped across the threshold. Her face was still turned toward his, but her smile was a little fixed.
"Nora."
"Yes."
"Come here."
"Why?"
"Because I tell you to."
Still, she did not move. In two strides he was over at her side. He stretched out his hand to seize her by the wrist.
"You daren't touch me!"
She pulled the door to sharply and stood with her back against it, facing him. Her face was as white as a linen mask, and about as expressionless. Only her eyes lived. Anger and fear had enlarged the pupils until they seemed black in the dead white of her face.
"You daren't!" she repeated.
"I daren't: who told you that?"
"Have you forgotten that I'm a woman?"
"No, I haven't. That's why I'm going to make you do as I tell you. If you were a man, I mightn't be able to. Come, now."
He made a movement to take her by the arm, but she was too quick for him. With the quickness of a cat, she slipped aside. The next moment, to his astonishment, he felt a stinging blow on the ear. He stared at her dumbfounded. It is safe to hazard that never in his life had he been so utterly taken aback.
She met his stare without lowering her glance. But she was panting now as if she had been running, one clenched hand pressed against her heaving breast.
He gave a short laugh, half of amused admiration at her daring, and half of anger.
"That was a darned silly thing to do!"
"What did you expect?"
"I expected that you were cleverer than to hit me. You ought to know that when it comes to--to muscle, I guess I've got the bulge on you."
"I'm not frightened of you."
It was a stupid thing to say. Nora realized it too late. If she had only been able to hold her tongue, he might have relented, she thought. But at her words, his face hardened once more and the same steely glitter came into his eyes. "Now come and wash up these things."
"I won't, I tell you!"
"Come on."
Quickly grasping her by the wrists, he began to drag her slowly but steadily to the table. Earlier in the evening she had boasted that she was as strong as a horse. As a matter of fact, she had unusual strength for a woman. But she was quickly made to realize that her strength, even intensified as it was by her anger was, of course, nothing compared with his. Strain and resist as she might, she could neither release herself from his grasp nor prevent him from forcing her nearer and nearer to the table which was his goal. In the struggle one of the large shell hair pins which she wore fell to the floor. In another second she heard it ground to pieces under his heel. A long strand of hair came billowing down below her waist.
Another moment, and by making a long arm, he could reach the table. With a quick movement for which she was unprepared, he brought her two hands sharply together so that he could hold both of her wrists with one hand, leaving the other free.
"Let me go, let me go!"
She kicked him, first on one shin and then on the other. But their bodies were too close together for the blows to have any force.
"Come on now, my girl. What's the good of making a darned fuss about it." His laugh was boyish in its exultant good-nature.
"You brute, how dare you touch me! You'll never force me to do anything. Let go! Let go! Let go!"
And now, his free hand held fast the edge of the table. With a quick movement she bent down and fastened her teeth in the skin of the back of his hand. With an exclamation of pain, he released her, carrying his wounded hand instinctively to his mouth.
"Gee, what sharp teeth you've got!"
"You cad! you cad!" she panted.
"I never thought you'd bite," he said, looking at his bleeding hand ruefully. "That ain't much like a lady, according to my idea."
"You filthy cad! To hit a woman!"
"Gee, I didn't hit you. You smacked my face and kicked my shins, and you bit my hand. And now you say I hit you."
He picked up his pipe from the table and mechanically rammed the tobacco down with his thumb and looked about for a match.
"You beast! I hate you!"
In the height of her passion she unconsciously began twisting up the loosened strand of her hair.
"I don't care about that, so long as you wash them cups."
With a furious gesture she swept the table clean.
"Look!" she screamed, as cups, saucers, plates and teapot broke into a thousand pieces at his feet.
There came another little sound of something breaking, like a faint echo far away. It was his pipe which had fallen among the wreckage. In his astonishment at her sudden action, he had bitten through the mouthpiece.
"That's a pity; we're terribly short of crockery. We shall have to drink our tea out of cans now," was all he said.
"I said I wouldn't wash them, and I haven't washed them," Nora exulted.
"They don't need it now, I guess," he said humorously.
"I think I've won!"
"Sure," he said without the slightest trace of rancor. "Now take the broom and sweep up all the darned mess you've ma
de."
"I won't!"
"Look here, my girl," he said threateningly, "I guess I've had about enough of your nonsense: you do as you're told and look sharp about it."
"You can kill me, if you like!"
"What would be the good of that? Women, as you reminded me a little while back, are scarce in Manitoba."
He gave a searching look around the room and spying the broom in the corner, went over and fetched it.
"Here's the broom."
"If you want that mess swept up, you can sweep it up yourself."
"Look here, you make me tired!"
His tone suggested that he was becoming more irritated. But Nora was beyond caring. As he put the broom in her hand, she flung it from her as far as she could. "Look here," he said again, and this time there was no mistaking the menace in his voice, "if you don't clean up that mess at once, I'll give you the biggest hiding you ever had in your life, I promise you that."
"You?" she jeered.
"Yours truly," he said, nodding his head. "I've done with larking now." He began rolling up the sleeves of his sweater. For some obscure reason--possibly because his deliberation seemed to connote implacability--this simple action filled her with a terror that she had not known before even in the midst of their physical struggle.
"Help! Help! Help!" she screamed.
She rushed across the room and threw open the door, sending her agonized appeal out into the night.
"Help! Help! Help!"
She strained her ears for any sign of response.
"What's the good of that? There's no one within a mile of us. Listen."
It is doubtful if she heard his words. If she had, it would have mattered but little. The answering silence which engulfed her like a wave told her that she was lost. She bowed her head in her hands. Her whole slender body was wrecked with hard, dry sobs. When she lifted her head, he read in her eyes the anguish of the conquered. Nevertheless, she made one last stand.
"If you so much as touch me, I'll have you up for cruelty. There are laws to protect me."
"I don't care a curse for the laws," he laughed. "I know I'm going to be master here. And if I tell you to do a thing, you've darned well got to do it, because I can make you. Now stop this fooling. Pick up that crockery and get the broom."
"I won't!"
The Land of Promise: A Comedy in Four Acts (1922) Page 13