He made one stride toward her.
"No, don't. Don't hurt me!" she shrieked.
"I guess there's only one law here," he said. "And that's the law of the strongest. I don't know nothing about cities; perhaps men and women are equal there. But on the prairie, a man's the master because he's bigger and stronger than a woman."
"Frank!"
"Damn you, don't talk."
She did not move. Her eyes were on the ground. Pride and Fear were having their last struggle, and Fear conquered. Without looking at her husband she could feel that his patience was nearing an end. Very slowly she stooped down and picked up the teapot and the broken cups and saucers and laid them on the table. Blindly she tottered over to the rocking-chair and burst into a passion of tears.
"And I thought I knew what it was to be unhappy!"
He watched her with a slight, but not unkindly, smile on his face.
"Come on, my girl," he said, without any trace of anger, "don't shirk the rest of it."
Through her laced fingers, she looked at the mess of spilled tea on the floor. Keeping her tear-marred face turned away from him, she slowly got up, and slowly found the broom and swept it all into a little heap on the newspaper that lay where he had left it.
Suddenly she threw back her head. Her eyes shone with a new resolution. He watched her, wondering. With a quick, firm step, she carried the rolled-up paper to the stove and shoved it far into the glowing embers. Gathering up the crockery, after a glance around the room in search of some receptacle which her eye did not find, she carried it over to the wood-pile, laying it upon the logs. The broom was restored to its corner. She took up her hat and coat and began to put them on.
"What are you doing?"
"I've done what you made me do, now I'm going."
"Where, if I might ask?"
"What do I care, as long as I get away."
"You ain't under the impression that there's a first-class hotel round the corner, are you? There ain't."
"I can go to the Sharps."
"I guess they're in bed and asleep by now."
"I'll wake them."
"You'd never find your way. It's pitch dark. Look."
He threw open the door. It was true. The sky had clouded over. The feeling of the air had changed. It smelt of storm.
"I'll sleep out of doors, then."
"On the prairie? Why, you'd freeze to death before morning."
"What does it matter to you whether I live or die?"
"It matters a great deal. Once more, let me remind you that women are scarce in Manitoba."
"Are you going to keep me from going?"
"Sure."
He closed the door and placed his back against it.
"You can't keep me here against my will. If I don't go to-night, I can go to-morrow."
"To-morrow's a long, long way off."
Her hand flew to her throat.
"Frank! What do you mean?"
"I don't know what silly fancies you've had in your head; but when I married you I intended that you should be a proper wife to me."
"But--but--but you understood."
It was all she could do to force the words from her dry throat. With a desperate effort she pulled herself together and tried to talk calmly and reasonably.
"I'm sorry for the way I've behaved, Frank. It was silly and childish of me to struggle with you. You irritated me, you see, by the way you spoke and the tone you took."
"Oh, I don't mind. I don't know much about women and I guess they're queer. We had to fix things up sometime and I guess there's no harm in getting it over right now."
"You've beaten me all along the line and I'm in your power. Have mercy on me!"
"I guess you won't have much cause to complain."
"I married you in a fit of temper. It was very stupid of me. I'm very sorry that I--that I've been all this trouble to you. Won't you let me go?"
"No, I can't do that."
"I'm no good to you. You've told me that I'm useless. I can't do any of the things that you want a wife to do. Oh," she ended passionately, "you can't be so hard-hearted as to make me pay with all my whole life for one moment's madness!"
"What good will it do you if I let you go? Will you go to Gertie and beg her to take you back again? You've got too much pride for that."
She made a gesture of abnegation: "I don't think I've got much pride left."
"Don't you think you'd better give it a try?"
Once more hope wakened in Nora's heart. His tone was so reasonable. If she kept her self-control, she might yet win. She sat down on one of the stools and spoke in a tone that was almost conversational.
"All this life is so strange to me. Back in England, they think it's so different from what it really is. I thought I should have a horse to ride, that there would be dances and parties. And when I came out, I was so out of it all. I felt in the way. And yesterday Gertie drove me frantic so that I felt I couldn't stay a moment longer in that house. I acted on impulse. I didn't know what I was doing. I made a mistake. You can't have the heart to take advantage of it."
"I knew you was making a mistake, but that was your lookout. When I sell a man a horse, he can look it over for himself. I ain't obliged to tell him its faults."
"Do you mean to say that after I've begged you almost on my knees to let me go, you'll force me to stay?"
[Illustration: FRANK GLIMPSES THE APPROACHING STORM THAT MEANS HIS RUIN.]
"That's what I mean."
"Oh, why did I ever trap myself so!"
"Come, my girl, let's let bygones be bygones," he said good-humoredly. "Come, give me a kiss."
She tried a new tack.
"I'm not in love with you," she said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"I guessed that."
"And you're not in love with me."
"You're a woman and I'm a man."
"Do you want me to tell you in so many words that you're physically repellent to me? That the thought of letting you kiss me horrifies and disgusts me?" In spite of her resolution, her voice was rising.
"Thank you." He was still good-humored.
"Look at your hands; it gives me goose-flesh when you touch me."
"Cuttin' down trees, diggin', lookin' after horses don't leave them very white and smooth."
"Let me go! Let me go!"
He took a step away from the door. His whole manner changed.
"See here, my girl. You was educated like a lady and spent your life doin' nothing. Oh, I forgot: you was a lady's companion, wasn't you? And you look on yourself as a darned sight better than me. I never had no schooling. It's a hell of a job for me to write a letter. But since I was so high"--his hand measured a distance of about three feet from the floor--"I've earned my living. I guess I've been all over this country. I've been a trapper, I've worked on the railroad and for two years I've been a freighter. I guess I've done pretty nearly everything but clerk in a store. Now you just get busy and forget all the nonsense you've got in your head. You're nothing but an ignorant woman and I'm your master. I'm goin' to do what I like with you. And if you don't submit willingly, by God I'll take you as the trappers, in the old days, used to take the squaws."
For the last moment Nora could hardly have been said to have listened. In a delirium of terror her eyes swept the little cabin, searching desperately for some means of escape. As he made a step toward her, her roving eye suddenly fell on her husband's gun, standing where Sharp had left it when he brought it in. With a bound, she was across the room, the gun at her shoulder. With an oath, Frank started forward.
"If you move, I'll kill you!"
"You daren't!"
"Unless you open that door and let me go, I'll shoot you--I'll shoot you!"
"Shoot, then!" He held his arms wide, exposing his broad chest.
With a sobbing cry, she pulled the trigger. The click of the falling hammer was heard, nothing more.
"Gee whiz!" shouted Taylor in admiration. "Why, you meant it!"
&n
bsp; The gun fell clattering to the floor.
"It wasn't loaded?"
"Of course it wasn't loaded. D'you think I'd have stood there and told you to shoot if it had been? I guess I ain't thinking of committin' suicide."
"And I almost admired you!"
"You hadn't got no reason to. There's nothing to admire about a man who stands five feet off a loaded gun that's being aimed at him. He'd be a darned fool, that's all."
"You were laughing at me all the time."
"You'd have had me dead as mutton if that gun 'ud been loaded. You're a sport, all right, all right. I never thought you had it in you. You're the girl for me, I guess!"
As she stood there, dazed, perfectly unprepared, he threw his arms around her and attempted to kiss her.
"Let me alone! I'll kill myself if you touch me!"
"I guess you won't." He kissed her full on the mouth, then let her go.
Sinking into a chair, she sobbed in helpless, angry despair.
"Oh, how shameful, how shameful!"
He let her alone for a little; then, when the violence of her sobbing had died away, came over and laid his hand gently on her shoulder.
"Hadn't you better cave in, my girl? You've tried your strength against mine and it hasn't amounted to much. You even tried to shoot me and I only made you look like a darned fool. I guess you're beat, my girl. There's only one law here. That's the law of the strongest. You've got to do what I want because I can make you."
"Haven't you any generosity?"
"Not the kind you want, I guess."
She gave a little moan of anguish.
"Hark!" He held up his hand as if to call her attention to something. For a moment, hope flamed from its embers. But stealing a glance at his face from beneath her drooping lashes, she saw that she was mistaken. The last spark died, to be rekindled no more.
"Listen! Listen to the silence. Can't you hear it, the silence of the prairie? Why, we might be the only two people in the world, you and me, here in this little shack, right out in the prairie. Are you listening? There ain't a sound. It might be the garden of Eden. What's that about male and female, created He them? I guess you're my wife, my girl. And I want you."
Nora gave him a sidelong look of terror and remained dumb. What would have been the use of words even if she could have found voice to utter them?
Taking up the lamp, he went to the door of the bedroom and threw it wide. She saw without looking that he remained standing, like a statue of Fate, on the threshold.
To gain time, she picked up the dishcloth and began to scrub at an imaginary spot on the table.
"I guess it's getting late. You'll be able to have a good clean-out to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" A violent shudder, similar to the convulsion of the day before, shook her from head to foot. But she kept on with her scrubbing.
"Come!"
The word smote her ear with all the impact of a cannon shot. The walls caught it, and gave it back. There was no other sound in heaven or earth than the echo of that word!
Shame, anguish and fear, in turn, passed over her face. Then, with her hands before her eyes, she passed beyond him, through the door which he still held open.
CHAPTER XIV
The storm which the night had foreshadowed broke with violence before dawn. At times during the night, the wind had howled about the little building in a way which recalled to Nora one of the best-remembered holidays of her childhood. She and her mother had gone to Eastborne for a fortnight with some money Eddie had sent them shortly after his arrival in Canada. The autumnal equinox had caught them during the last days of their stay, and the strong impression which the wind had made upon her childish mind had remained with her ever since.
Lying, wakeful through the long hours, staring wide-eyed out of the little curtainless window into the thick darkness, thick enough to seem palpable; the memory of how, on that far-off day she had passed long hours with her nose flattened against the window of the dingy little lodging-house drawing-room watching the wonder of the wind-lashed sea, came back to her with extraordinary vividness.
The spectacle had filled her with a sort of terrified exultation. She had longed to go out and stand on the wind-buffeted pier and take her part in this saturnalia of the elements. She had something of the same feeling now; a longing to leave her bed and go out onto the windswept prairie.
Strangely enough, she had no sensation of fatigue or weariness either bodily or mentally. Her mind, indeed, seemed extraordinarily active. Little petty details of her childhood and of her life with Miss Wickham, long forgotten, such as the day the gardener had cut his thumb, trooped through her mind in an endless procession. She had a strange feeling that she would never sleep again.
But just as the blackness without seemed turning into heavy grayness, lulled possibly by the wind which had moderated its violence and had now sunk to a moan not unpleasant, and by the rythmic breathing of the sleeping man at her side, she fell asleep.
For several hours she must have slept heavily, indeed. For when she awoke, it was to find the place at her side empty. Hurriedly dressing herself, she went out into the living-room. That was empty, too. But the lamp was lighted, the kettle was singing merrily on the stove and the fire was burning brightly. And outside was a whirling veil of snow which made it impossible to see beyond the length of one's arm.
Had she been marooned on an island in the ultimate ocean of the Antartic, she could not have felt more cut off from the world she knew. Well, it was better so.
She wondered what had become of Frank. Surely on a day like this there could be nothing to do outside; and even if there were, nothing so imperative as to take him away before he had had his breakfast. She felt a little hurt at his leaving without a word.
Evidently, he expected to return soon, however. The table was laid for two. She felt her face crimson as she saw that there was but one cup left. One of them must drink from one of those horrible tin cans. She did not ask herself which one it would be.
Partly to occupy herself and to take her thoughts away from the recollection of the events of the evening before, and partly prompted by a desire to have everything in readiness against her husband's return, she busied herself with the preparations for breakfast.
There were some eggs and a filch of bacon which they had brought from Winnipeg. She would make some toast, too. Very likely he didn't care for it, they certainly never had it at Gertie's, but in her house---- She smiled to think how quickly, in her mind, she had taken possession.
She was just beginning to think that she had been foolish to start her cooking without knowing at all when he was going to return, when she heard a great stamping and scraping of feet outside, and in another moment Frank's snow-covered figure darkened the doorway.
"Getting on with the breakfast? That's fine!" he called.
"It's quite ready: wherever have you been? I wouldn't have imagined that anyone could find a thing to do outside on a day like this."
"Oh, there's always something to do. But I just ran up to the Sharps' for a minute. I knew old mother Sharp wouldn't keep her promise about coming down to-day. She's all right, but she does hate to walk."
"Well, I'm sure I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing to stay indoors a day like this. But what did you want to see her in such a hurry for?"
"Oh, nothin' particular; I sort of thought maybe you wouldn't mind having a little milk with your tea on a gloomy morning like this," he said shamefacedly.
"That was awfully good of you; thank you very much," she said with real gratitude, as she thought of him tramping those two miles in the blinding storm.
"Do you think we are in for a blizzard?" she asked when they were at the table. To her unspeakable relief, she found that the one cup was intended for her; he had waved her toward the one chair, apparently the place of honor, contenting himself with one of the stools.
"N-o-o," he said, "I don't think so. It's beginning to lighten up a little already. And besides, don't you remember tha
t I foretold a mildish winter?"
"I was forgetting that I had married a prophet," she smiled.
But all through the day the snow continued to fall steadily, although the wind had died away and, at intervals, the sun shone palely. At nightfall, it was still snowing.
The day passed quickly, as Nora found plenty to occupy herself with. By supper time she felt healthfully tired, with the added comfortable feeling that, for a novice, she had really accomplished a good deal.
The whole room certainly looked cleaner and the pots and pans, although not shining, were as near to it as hot water and scrubbing could make them. Fortunately, she had a quantity of fresh white paper in her trunk which greatly improved the appearance of the shelves.
During the day Frank left the house for longer or shorter intervals on various pretexts which she felt must be largely imaginary, trumped up for the occasion. She was agreeably surprised to find that he was sufficiently tactful to divine that she wanted to be alone.
While he was in the house he smoked his pipe incessantly and read some magazines which she had unpacked with some of her books. But she never glanced suddenly in his direction without finding that he was watching her.
"I tell you, this is fine," he said heartily as he was lighting his after-supper pipe. "Mrs. Sharp won't hardly know the place when she comes over. She's never seen it except when I was housekeeper. She doesn't think I'm much good at it. Leastways, she's always tellin' Sid that if she dies, he must marry again right away as soon as he can find anyone to have him, for fear the house gets to looking like this."
"That doesn't look like a very strong indorsement," Nora admitted.
The next day Nora woke to a world of such dazzling whiteness that she was blinded every time she attempted to look out on it.
"You want to be careful," her husband cautioned her; "getting snow-blinded isn't as much fun as you'd think. Even I get bad sometimes; and I'm used to it. Looks like one of them Christmas cards, don't it? Somebody sent Gertie one once and she showed it to us."
That afternoon, Mr. Sharp drove his wife down for the promised visit. As in his judgment the two women would want to be alone, he proposed to Frank to drive back home with him to give him the benefit of his opinion on some improvements he was contemplating.
The Land of Promise: A Comedy in Four Acts (1922) Page 14