The Land of Promise Part 40

"I could do with that myself," remarked Hornby.

"I've never had so much money in all my life!"

"But what's the other piece of good news that Miss Stick-in-the-mud has for you?"

"Oh, I quite forgot. Where is it?" Her brother stooped and picked the fallen letter from the floor.

"Thank you. Um-um-um-um-um. Oh, yes, 'Piece of good news for you. I write at once so that you may make your plans accordingly. I told you in my last letter, did I not, of my sister-in-law's sudden death? Now my brother is very anxious that I should make my home with him. So I am leaving Mrs. Hubbard. She wishes me to say that if you care to have my place as her companion, she will be very pleased to have you. I have been with her for thirteen years and she has always treated me like an equal. She is very considerate and there is practically nothing to do but to exercise the dear little dogs. The salary is thirty-five pounds a year.'"

"But," said Marsh, looking at the envelope in his hand, "the letter is addressed to Miss Marsh. I'd intended to ask you about that; don't they know you're married?"

"No. I haven't told them."

"What a lark!" said Reggie, slapping his knee. "You could go back to Tunbridge Wells, and none of the old frumps would ever know you'd been married at all."

"Why, so I could!" said Nora in a breathless tone. She gave Hornby a strange look and turned toward the window to hide the fact that she had flushed to the roots of her hair.

Her brother gave her a long look.

"Just clear out for a minute, Reg. I want to talk with Nora."

"Right-o!" He disappeared in the direction of the shed.

"Nora, do you _want_ to clear out?"

"What on earth makes you think that I do?"

"You gave Reg such a look when he mentioned it."

"I'm only bewildered. Tell me, did Frank know anything about this?"

"My dear, how could he?"

"It's most extraordinary; he was talking about my going away only a moment before you came."

"About your going away? But why?"

She realized that she had betrayed herself and kept silent.

"Nora, for goodness' sake tell me if there's anything the matter. Can't you see it's now or never? You're keeping something back from me. I could see it all along, ever since I came. Aren't you two getting on well together?"

"Not very," she said in a low, shamed tone.

"Why in heaven's name didn't you let me know."

"I was ashamed."

"But you just now said he was kind to you."

"I have nothing to reproach him with."

"I tell you I felt there was something wrong. I knew you couldn't be happy with him. A girl like you, with your education and refinement, and a man like him--a hired man! Oh, the whole thing would have been ridiculous if it weren't horrible. Not that he's not a good fellow and as straight as they make them, but---- Well, thank G.o.d, I'm here and you've got this chance."

"Eddie, what do you mean?"

"You're not fit for this life. I mean you've got your chance to go back home to England. For G.o.d's sake, take it! In six months' time, all you've gone through here will seem nothing but a hideous dream."

The expression of her face was so extraordinary, such a combination of fear, bewilderment, and something that was far deeper than dismay, that he stared at her for a moment without speaking.

"Nora, what's the matter!"

"I don't know," she said hoa.r.s.ely.

But she did, she did.

At his words, the picture of the little shack--her home now--as it had looked the first time she saw it in all its comfortlessness, its untidy squalor, rose before her eyes. And she saw a lonely man clumsily busying himself about the preparation of an illy-cooked meal, and later sitting smoking in the desolate silence. She saw him go forth to his daily toil with all the lightness gone from his step, to return at nightfall, with a heaviness born of more than mere physical fatigue, to the same bleak bareness.

And she saw herself, back at Tunbridge Wells. No longer the mistress, but the underpaid underling. Eating once more off fine old china, at a table sparkling with silver and gla.s.s. But the bread was bitter, the bread of the dependent. And she came and went at another's bidding, and the yoke was not easy. She trod once more, round and round, in that little circle which she knew so well. She used to think that the walls would stifle her. How much more would they not stifle her now that she had known this larger freedom?

"I say," said Reggie's voice from the doorway, "here's someone coming to see you."

CHAPTER XVII

It was Mrs. Sharp, making her laborious way slowly up the path.

"Why," said Nora, in a low voice, "it's Mrs. Sharp, the wife of our neighbor. Whatever brings her here on foot! She never walks a step if she can help it."

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Sharp," she called.

Mrs. Sharp had apparently come on some sudden impulse. Usually, well as they knew each other by this time, she always made more or less of a toilet before having her husband drive her over. But to-day she had evidently come directly from her work. She wore a battered old skirt and a faded shirt-waist, none too clean. On her head was an old sunbonnet, the strings of which were tied in a hard knot under her fat chin.

"Come right in," said Nora cordially. "You _do_ look warm."

"Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Taylor. Yes, I'm all in a perspiration.

I've not walked so far--well, goodness alone knows when!"

"This is my brother," said Nora, presenting Eddie.

"Your brother? Is _that_ who it is!"

"Why, you seem surprised."

Mrs. Sharp forbore any explanation for the moment. Sinking heavily into the rocking chair, she accepted with a grateful nod the fan that Nora offered her. There was nothing to do but to give her time to recover her breath. Nora and Eddie sat down and waited.