CARRIE MAKES HER VIEWS CLEAR
It was ten o'clock next morning when Carrie, coming down to breakfast,
found that her husband had gone out two or three hours earlier. Gallwey
also came in, soon after she had finished the meal, to say that Leland
might not be back until the evening, and, when he offered to take her
round the homestead, she decided to go with him. Mrs. Nesbit, who
equipped her with a pair of lined gum-boots, helped her on with her
furs, gazing at them admiringly.
"There's not another set like them on the prairie, and I expect there
are very few folks in Montreal have anything quite as smart," she said.
"They must have cost a pile of money."
A little flush crept into Carrie's face, but she answered languidly.
"I suppose they did," she said. "Mr. Leland had them made for me."
"Well," said the woman, who gazed at her with an air of deprecation,
"you have got a good man, my dear. There's not a straighter or a
better-hearted one between Winnipeg and the Rockies--but it would be
worth while to humour him a little. He has just a hard spot or two in
him, and he generally gets his way."
Carrie smiled, a trifle coldly. "And so do I."
She went out with Gallwey, but the hard-handed woman stood still a
moment with a shadow of anxiety in her eyes, and then sighed a little as
she went on with her work again. She would have done a good deal to save
Charley Leland trouble, and she foresaw difficulties.
In the meanwhile, the girl found the cold unlike anything she had felt
in England, but, after the first few minutes, more endurable than she
had expected. There was no trace of moisture in that crystalline
atmosphere, the sun that had no heat in it shone dazzlingly, and the
snow that flung the sun's rays back fell from her feet dusty and dry as
flour. No cloud flecked the clear blueness overhead, and fainter washes
of the same cold colour marked the beaten trails and prints of
horse-hoofs that alone broke the gleaming surface of the white expanse
below. On the far horizon she could see grey blurs, which were
presumably trees.
Gallwey, who was wrapped in an old fur coat from cheeks to ankles,
proved an agreeable companion. He led her first a little way back among
the slender birches, where she could see the house. It was, she decided,
by no means picturesque, a rambling, frame structure roofed with cedar
shingles, built round what was evidently the original hut of small birch
logs; but it had a little verandah with rude pillars and trellis work on
one side of it, and Gallwey assured her there were not many houses in
that country to equal it. Then he showed her the barns and stables,
built in part of birch logs and for the rest of sods, stretching back
into the shelter of the bluff. They were primitive and almost shapeless
structures, with roofs that apparently consisted of straw and soil and
snow, but she fancied their thickness would keep out even the frost of
the Northwest. There were, however, only a horse or two and a few brawny
oxen standing in them. Last of all, he led her into one of the most
curious edifices she had ever seen. Sitting down on one of the wheat
bags inside it, she looked about her.
It had no definite outline, and, from the outside, it had looked like a
great mound of snow, but she now saw that it had a skeleton wall of
birch branches. Round this had been piled an immensity of very short
straw, and the roof, which had partly fallen in as the bags beneath it
had been cut out, consisted of the same material. It was filled with
bags of wheat that here and there trickled red-gold grain, and she
turned to Gallwey with a question.
"Is this the usual granary?" she said.
Gallwey laughed. "There are quite a few of them in this country. You
see, we don't stack the grain here, but leave most of the straw
standing, and thresh in the field, whilst most of the smaller men rush
their grain in to the railroad elevators as soon as that is done. As a
rule, they want their money, but Charley had meant to hold wheat this
year."
Carrie felt a little thoughtful, for it was evident that her husband's
change of purpose had attracted attention, and she fancied she knew the
reason for it.
"The stables are a little primitive, too," she said.
"They are no doubt very different from what you have been accustomed to
in England, but they serve their purpose, and in a way they're
characteristic of your husband. While there are men who would spend
part of their profits making things comfortable, every dollar Charley
Leland takes out of the land goes back into it again, and with the
increase he breaks so many more acres each year. It's a tolerably bold
policy, but that is what suits him, and it has succeeded well so far.
For one thing, he wants very little for personal expenses. To all
intents and purposes he hasn't any."
He stopped a moment, and then went on deprecatingly: "I wonder if I may
say that I am glad he has married. After all, it is scarcely fit for a
man to live as he has done, stripping himself of everything. It has been
all effort and self-denial, and you can do so much to make things
pleasant for him."
Carrie was touched, though she would not show it. The man, who
apparently had no time for pleasure and no thought of comfort, had been
very generous to her. It was also evident that there was much a woman
could do to brighten the life he led, if it was only to teach him that
it had more to offer him than the material results of ceaseless labour.
Still, that had not been her purpose in marrying him, and she felt an
uncomfortable sense of confusion as she decided that it would have been
very much better if he had chosen a woman who loved him. As things were,
he must give everything, and there was so little that she could offer.
"Where are all the horses and the men gone?" she asked.
"To the railroad. They started before the sun was up, but Charley has
driven twenty miles to meet one of the Winnipeg cattle-brokers. It's
wheat or beef only with most men in this country, but we raise the two,
and Charley is thinking of cutting out some stock for the market, though
it's very seldom done at this season. We only keep store beasts through
the winter, and, as they take their chances in the open, when the snow
comes they get poor and thin."
Gallwey excused himself in another minute or two, and Carrie, who went
back to the house, spent the afternoon lying in a big chair by the stove
with a book, of which she read but little. From what she had heard, it
was evident that Leland was selling his wheat and cattle at a sacrifice,
which, she could understand, he would naturally not have done, could he
have helped it. The reflection was not exactly a pleasant one, for
though Branscombe Denham had carefully refrained from mentioning to what
agreement he and Leland had come, she was, of course, aware that her
marriage had relieved him from some, at least, of his financial
difficulties. After all, though she had sacrificed herself for him, she
could not think highly of her father, and the fact that her husband had
been thus compelled to strip himself was painful to contemplate. It
placed her under a heavy obligation to Leland, and there was so little
she could do, or, at least, was willing to do, that would free her of
it.
It was dark when he came in, walking stiffly, with his fur coat hard
with frost, and her heart smote her again as she saw how his weary face
brightened at the sight of her. It cost her an effort to submit to the
touch of his lips, but she made it, though she felt her cheeks grow hot,
and was sorry she had done so when she saw the glint in his eyes and
felt the constraint of his arm. Drawing herself away from him, she
slipped back a pace or two. Leland stood looking at her wistfully.
"I didn't wish to startle you," he said. "Still, it has been a little
hard and lonely here, and I fancied it was going to be different now. I
was looking forward to a kind word from you all the twenty miles home."
An unusual colour crept into his wife's face. Both of them were glad
that Jake limped in just then with the evening meal, which in that
country differs in no way from breakfast or the midday dinner. Salt
pork, potatoes, apples, flapjacks or hot cakes with molasses, and strong
green tea, it is usually very much the same from Winnipeg to Calgary.
Few men have more, or desire it, on the prairie, and fewer still have
less. At the end of the meal, when Jake had cleared away, Carrie Leland
looked up questioningly at her husband, who sat opposite her beside the
crackling stove. There was nobody else in the big, bare room.
"You haven't told me why it is not convenient for me to have Ada Heaton
here just now," she said.
"You want her very much?" and again the man glanced at her wistfully.
"Yes," said Carrie, "of course I do. I must have somebody to talk to."
Leland made a gesture of vague appeal. "I suppose it's only natural,
though I had 'most dared to hope you might be content for a little with
my company. Anyway, we won't let that count. Couldn't you bring Mrs.
Annersly out? I like her, and she told me that if I asked her she would
come and stay a year. Then there's your younger sister."
"You don't suppose that Lily would come to live here?" and there was
something in her smile that jarred upon the man.
"Well," he said, "I'm sorry. She was rather nice to me. Is there nobody
else you could think of?"
"One would almost fancy that you were trying to get away from the
question. It is why you don't want me to bring Ada Heaton here."
Leland leaned forward a little, and laid his hand upon her arm. "Won't
you let it rest to please me? I haven't asked you very much."
The girl was almost tempted to do so, but, unfortunately, she had some
notion of what was influencing him, and resented it.
"No," she said coldly. "I really think I ought to know."
"Then I'm sorry, but it wouldn't suit me to have Mrs. Heaton here at
all."
"Why?" and an ominous red spot appeared in the girl's cheek as she shook
off his arm.
Leland stood up, and, leaning upon the chair-back, looked down at her.
Perhaps he felt it gave him an advantage, and he would need it in the
struggle which was evidently impending. He had never faced an angry
woman before, and he shrank from it now, but not sufficiently to desist
from what he felt he had to do.
"I wonder if you have ever asked yourself why Mrs. Heaton is in Chicago
when her home is in London," he said. "I can't believe that she told
you."
"Ah,"--and Carrie moved her head so that he could see the sparkle in her
eyes--"you have heard those tales, and believed them--about a relative
of mine. Presumably, you have heard nothing about Captain Heaton?"
"It was one of your people who told me. They said the man was short of
temper. So are a good many of us; and, it seems, he had some reason.
Still, there's rather more against Mrs. Heaton than that she's not
living with her own husband. Knowing you meant to ask her here, I made
inquiries."
The girl turned towards him with anger and contempt in her face, which
was almost colourless now, although she fancied that he knew rather more
than she did about the recent doings of the lady in question. The pride
of family was especially strong in her, as it occasionally is in cases
where there is very little to warrant it.
"Your time was well employed," she said. "You who live here with your
horses and cattle presume to decide how people of our station should
spend their lives."
"There is one thing, at least, expected of a woman who is married; it's
the necessary foundation of civilised society. And the woman you want to
bring here has openly disregarded it. You must have heard something of
the trouble between her and her husband in London, but I can't quite
think you know how she came to be in Chicago."
As a matter of fact, Carrie Leland did not know. Still, she would not
ask the man, who had apparently laid firm hands upon his temper, and was
looking at her appealingly. It was unfortunate that she only remembered
he had presumed to cast a slur upon one of her relations, and was, in
her opinion, very far beneath her. She refused to answer, and Leland's
face grew grim.
"Well," he said, "you are in almost every way your own mistress, but
there are points on which what I say stands. This house was built for my
mother. I have brought my wife home to it now, and Mrs. Heaton does not
enter its door."
Carrie rose and faced him, imperious, but at last dangerously cold in
her anger.
"Your wife!" she said. "Could you have expected that I should ever be
more than that in name to you?"
The veins showed swollen on the man's forehead as he looked at her, and
a dark flush crept into his bronzed cheek.
"Madam," he said, "now you have gone that far, you have got to tell me
exactly what you mean."
"It should be quite plain. You could buy me. It sounds absurd, of
course, and a trifle theatrical, but it is just what took place, and
there are no doubt many of us for sale. Isn't that alone sufficient to
make me hate you? Can't you realise the sickening humiliation of it, and
did you suppose you could buy my love as well?"
Leland made her a little inclination which, though it was the last thing
she had expected just then, undoubtedly became him. "I had 'most
ventured to hope that you might give it me by-and-bye," he said.
His restraint did not serve him. The girl realised that she was in the
wrong, but she had failed in her desire to look down on him. This she
naturally felt was another grievance against him. She had the old
disdain of those who own the land for those who till it, and, although
in this man's case, the contempt she strove to feel seemed out of
place, it was horribly humiliating to recognise that she was wholly in
his hands.
"To you?" she said, with a bitter laugh that brought the dark flush to
his face again.
Leland laid his hand on her shoulder and gripped it hard.
"I have, perhaps, no great reason for setting too high a value on
myself," he said. "What I am you know, but, if you must have plain talk,
there were two men made the bargain that disposed of you. It cost me a
big share of my possessions to satisfy your father, but he showed no
unwillingness to take my cheque, and he would have taken Aylmer's could
he have raised him high enough. Who was the lowest down, the Western
farmer, who, at least, meant to be kind to you, or Branscombe Denham,
who was willing to sell his daughter to the highest bidder? Still, you
were right. It was, in one way, about the meanest thing I ever did. The
blood was in my face when I made my offer--and your father smiled. By
the Lord, if I'd made that proposition to any hard-up wheat-grower
between here and Calgary, he'd have whipped me from his door."
The girl had plenty of courage, but she was almost afraid of him now,
for there was a strength and grimness in his bronzed face which she had
never seen in that of any Denham, and the tightening grip of his
ploughman's fingers bruised her shoulder cruelly. Perhaps unconsciously,
he shook her a little in a gust of passion, and she set her lips hard to
check the cry she would not have uttered had he beaten her.
"Now," he said, "in any case, you belong to me. That has to be
remembered always. How are we to go on? What is it to be?"
Carrie contrived to smile sardonically. "Oh," she said, "sit down, and
try to be rational. All this is a trifle ridiculous."
Leland dropped his hand, and, when she sat down, leaned upon the back of
the other chair facing her.
"Well?" he said.
"It seems to me that we must quietly try to come to an understanding
once for all to-night. In the first place, why did you wish to marry
me?"
Leland set his lips for a moment. It would have been a relief just then
to tell her that it was to save her from Aylmer, but this appeared a
brutality to which he could not force himself, for, in spite of what she
had told him, he could not be sure that it had been his only reason. Her
shrinking from him, painful to him as it was, nevertheless had its
attraction.
"I believe I said that you were the most beautiful woman I had, at
least, ever spoken to," he said. "I was a lonely man, and it seemed to
me I might, perhaps, do big things some day, with a woman of your kind
to teach me what I did not know. That was part of it, but I think there
was more. It was a hard life and a bare one here, and I had a fancy that
you could show me how much I might have that I was missing. A smile
would have helped me through my difficulties; a word or two when one had
to choose between the mean and right, and the knowledge that there was
some one who believed in me, would have made another and gentler man of
me. Well, it seems that you have none of them to give me."
He made an emphatic gesture. "Still, we have to face the position as it
is, and my part's plain. Everything you have been used to you shall
have, so far as I can get it for you. You can have any of your friends
here who will make the journey and be civil to your farmer-husband, and
you can go to them when it pleases you. To save you ever asking me for
money, I will open you an account in a Winnipeg bank, and you need never
see me unless you wish to."
"Ah," said Carrie, "you are, at least, generous. To make the
understanding complete, what do you expect from me?"
Leland moved and laid his hand upon her shoulder again.
"Only to remember that, however little you think of your husband, you
are my wife, after all."
The girl's cheeks burned, but she looked up at him with a little hard
laugh. "I think I could have struck you for that, but it must go with
the rest. Still, even if I were all that your imagination could picture
me, and went as far as Mrs. Heaton did, why should it trouble you?"
Leland stooped lower over her with the veins swollen on his forehead and
a glint in his eyes.
"You and your father tricked me--taking all I had to offer for nothing,"
he said. "I suppose I ought to hate you, too--and still I can't."
Once more he gripped her cruelly. "By the Lord, dolt that I am, I think
I almost love you for the grit that made you show your scorn. Still,
that doesn't count. It is for me to go it alone."
He let his grasp relax and left her suddenly, turning at the door.
"You will want a companion. Will you write for Mrs. Annersly to-morrow?"
"I will," said Carrie coldly. "Under the circumstances it is advisable.
She will be a protection."
He went out and she saw no more of him for a day or two, but that night
she found a blue mark upon the whiteness of her shoulder.