The Land of Promise Part 18

"Has anyone seen my tobacco! Oh, here it is," he said, taking his pouch from his pocket. "Come, Reg, you'd better be getting on with it."

"Oh, Lord, is there no rest for the wicked?" exclaimed Hornby as he lounged lazily to the door.

"Don't hurry yourself, will you?"

"Brilliant sarcasm is just flying about this house to-day," was his parting shot as he banged the door behind him.

CHAPTER IX

Nora understood perfectly that her brother had been forced to take a stand as a result of this last quarrel with Gertie. Well, she was glad of it. Things certainly could not go on in this way forever. Of course he would have to make a show, at least, of taking his wife's part. But, equally of course, he would understand her position perfectly. However much his new life and his long absence from England might have changed him, at bottom their points of view were still the same. He and she, so to speak, spoke a common language; she and Gertie did not.

Gertie had probably been pouring out her acc.u.mulation of grievances to him for the last half hour. Now it was her turn. She would show that she was, as always, more than ready to meet Gertie half-way. It would be his affair to see that her advances were received in better part in future than they had been.

She went on busily with her ironing, waiting for him to begin. But Eddie seemed to experience a certain embarra.s.sment in coming to the subject.

While she took article after article from the clothes-basket at her side, he wandered about the room aimlessly, puffing at a pipe which seemed never to stay lighted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARRIED--THOUGH SECRETLY ENEMIES.]

"That's the toughest nut I've ever been set to crack," he said at length, pointing his pipestem after the vanished Hornby. "Why on earth did you give him a letter to me?"

"He asked me to. I couldn't very well say no."

"I can't make out what people are up to in the old country. They think that if a man is too big a rotter to do anything at all in England, they've only got to send him out here and he'll make a fortune."

"He may improve."

"I hope so. Look here, Nora, you've thoroughly upset Gertie."

"She's very easily upset, isn't she?"

"It's only since you came that things haven't gone right. We never used to have scenes."

"So you blame me. I came prepared to like her and help her. She met all my advances with suspicion."

"She thinks yon look down on her. You ought to remember that she never had your opportunities. She's earned her own living from the time she was thirteen. You can't expect in her the refinements of a woman who's led the protected life you have."

"Now, Eddie, I haven't said a word that could be turned into the least suggestion of disapproval of anything she did."

"My dear, your whole manner has expressed disapproval. You won't do things in the way we do them. After all, the way you lived in Tunbridge Wells isn't the only way people can live. Our ways suit us, and when you live amongst us you must adopt them."

"She's never given me a chance to learn them," said Nora obstinately.

"She treated me with suspicion and enmity the very first day I came here. When she sneered at me because I talked of a station instead of a depot, of _course_ I went on talking of a station. What do you think I'm made of? Because I prefer to drink water with my meals instead of your strong tea, she says I'm putting on airs."

Marsh made a pleading gesture.

"Why can't you humor her? You see, you've got to take the blame for all the English people who came here in the past and were lazy, worthless and supercilious. They called us Colonials and turned up their noses at us. What do you expect us to do?--say, 'Thank you very much, sir.' 'We know we're not worthy to black your boots.' 'Don't bother to work, it'll be a pleasure for us to give you money'? It's no good blinking the fact. There was a great prejudice against the English. But it's giving way now, and every sensible man and woman who comes out can do something to destroy it."

"All I can say," said Nora, going over to the stove to change her iron, "is if you're tired of having me here, I can go back to Winnipeg. I shan't have any difficulty in finding something to do."

"Good Lord, I don't want you to go. I like having you here. It's--it's company for Gertie. And jobs aren't so easy to find as you think, especially now the winter's coming on; everyone wants a job in the city."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to make the best of things and meet her half-way. You must make allowances for her even if you think her unreasonable. It's Gertie you've got to spend most of your time with."

He was so manifestly distressed and, as he hadn't been so hard on her as she had expected and in her own heart felt that she deserved, Nora softened at once.

"I'll have a try."

"That's a good girl. And I think you ought to apologize to her for what you said just now."

"I?" said Nora, aflame at once. "I've got nothing to apologize for. She drove me to distraction."

There was a moment's pause while Eddie softly d.a.m.ned the pipe he had forgotten to fill, for not keeping lighted.

"She says she won't speak to you again unless you beg her pardon."

"Really! Does she look upon that as a great hardship?"

"My dear! We're twelve miles from the nearest store. We're thrown upon each other for the entire winter. Last year there was a bad blizzard, and we didn't see a soul outside the farm for six weeks. Unless we learn to put up with one another's whims, life becomes a perfect h.e.l.l."

Nora stopped her work and set down her iron.

"You can go on talking all night, Eddie, I'll never apologize. Time after time when she sneered at me till my blood boiled, I've kept my temper. She deserved ten times more than I said. Do you think I'm going to knuckle under to a woman like that?"

"Remember she's my wife, Nora."

"Why didn't you marry a lady?"

"What the d.i.c.kens do you think is the use of being a lady out here?"

"You've degenerated since you left England."

"Now look here, my dear, I'll just tell you what Gertie did for me. She was a waitress in Winnipeg at the Minnedosa Hotel, and she was making money. She knew what the life was on a farm--much harder than anything she'd been used to in the city--but she accepted all the hardship of it and the monotony of it, because--because she loved me."

"She thought it a good match. You were a gentleman."

"Fiddledidee! She had the chance of much better men than me. And when----"

"Such men as Frank Taylor, no doubt."

"And when I lost my harvest two years running, do you know what she did?

She went back to the hotel in Winnipeg for the winter, so as to carry things on till the next harvest. And at the end of the winter, she gave me every cent she'd earned to pay the interest of my mortgage and the installments on the machinery."

Nora had been more moved by this recital than she would have cared to confess. She turned away her head to hide that her eyes had filled with tears. After all, a woman who could show such devotion as that, and to her brother---- Yes, she would try again.