CARRIE ABASES HERSELF
The warm spring day was over. In that land of contrasts, where there is
no slow melting of season into season, it is often hot while the last
snow-drifts linger in the shadows of the bluffs. Carrie and Mrs.
Annersly were sitting by an open window of Carrie's sitting-room. The
sun had gone, but, as usual at that season, a filmy curtain of green
overhung the vast sweep of prairie that had shaken off its hues of white
and grey for the first faint colour of spring. Above hung a pale, sickle
moon, and down the long slope, over which the harrow-torn furrows ran,
lines of men and weary teams were plodding home. Round the rest of that
half of the horizon, the prairie melted into the distance
imperceptibly--vast, mysterious, shadowy, under a great tense
silence--while the little chilled breeze that came up had in it the
properties of an elixir.
The thin-faced woman who lay in Carrie's big chair was not looking at
the prairie. She had watched the pageant of the seasons too often
before, and to her and her husband they had usually meant only a
variation in the ceaseless struggle which had left its mark on both of
them. In that country, man has to contend with drought, and harvest
frost, and devastating hail, for it is only by mighty effort and long
endurance that the Western farmer wrests his bare living from the soil.
When seasons are adverse, and they frequently are, a heavy share of the
burden falls upon the woman, too.
Mrs. Custer had borne hers patiently, but her face, which still showed
traces of refinement, was worn, and her hands and wrists were rough and
red. While Thomas Custer toiled out in the frost and sunshine from early
dawn to dusk to profit by the odd fat year, or more often, if it might
by feverish work be done, to make his losses good, she cooked and washed
and baked for him and the boys, a term that locally signifies every male
attached to the homestead. She had also made her own dresses, as well as
some of her husband's clothes, and darned and patched the latter with
cotton flour-bags. Yet the ceaseless struggle had not embittered her,
though it had left her weary. Perhaps it is the sunshine, or something
in the clean cold airs from the vast spaces of the wilderness, for man
holds fast to his faith and courage in that land of cloudless skies.
It was the rich, dark curtains, the soft carpet one's feet sank into,
the dainty furniture, the odds and ends of silver, and the few good
etchings at which the faded woman glanced with wistful appreciation. She
had been accustomed to such things once, but that was long ago, and she
had never seen on the prairie anything like Carrie Leland's room. With a
wee, contented smile she turned to the girl.
"It was so good of you to have me here, although if Tom's sister from
Traverse hadn't promised to look after him I couldn't have come," she
said. "It is three years since I have been away, and to know that one
has nothing to do for a whole week is almost too delightful now."
Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "I'm rather afraid that some of us
have that consolation, if it is one, all our lives," she said. "They
keep you busy at the Range?"
"From morning to night; and now we must work harder than ever, with one
of the boys in Montreal and wheat going down. One feels inclined to
wonder sometimes if the folks who buy our cheap flour would think so
much of the quarter-dollar on the sack if they knew what it costs us."
She stopped a moment with a little wistful smile. "I'm afraid this is
going to be a particularly lean year for a good many of us. Last year I
was busy, though I had a Scandinavian maid, but I shall be single-handed
now, and the grocery bill must come down, too. It's quite hard to pare
it any closer when everything you take off means extra work, and, with
it all, the boys must be fed."
Mrs. Annersly glanced at Carrie, who, for some reason, did not meet her
gaze.
"I think you mentioned that you came from Montreal," she said. "You must
have found it very different on the prairie."
"I certainly did. I had never done anything useful or been without all
the money I wanted when I married Tom Custer, who had gone out a year
earlier. My friends were against it, and they would probably have been
more so had they seen the Range as it was then. The house had three
rooms to it, and one was built of sod, while all the first summer the
rain ran in. Still we made out together, and got on little by little,
struggling for everything. A new stove or set of indurated ware meant
weeks of self-denial. Now I seem to have been pinching a lifetime,
though I am only forty; but Tom was always kind, and I do not think I
have ever been sorry."
She lay still, nestling luxuriously in the softly padded chair, and
through her worn face and hard hands the blurred stamp of refinement
once more shone. It was twenty years since she had turned away from the
brighter side of life, and, though she did not expect compassion,
Eveline Annersly felt sorry for her. There was also a certain
thoughtfulness in Carrie Leland's expression, which seemed to suggest
that a comparison was forced upon her. Both of them realised that the
wilderness is not subdued without a cost. Woman, it seemed, had her part
in the tense struggle, too, and Mrs. Custer was one of the many of whom
it can be said: "They also serve."
"Have you ever been home since you were married?" asked Carrie.
"Once," said Mrs. Custer, with a faint shadow in her face. "I never went
again. The others were not the same, or perhaps I had changed, for they
did not seem to understand me. My younger sisters were growing up, and
they thought only of dances, sleigh-rides and nights on the
toboggan-slides, as I suppose I did once. My dresses looked dowdy beside
theirs, too, and they told me I was getting too serious. I felt myself a
stranger in the house where I was born. One, it seems, loses touch so
soon."
Again she stopped and laughed. "One night something was said that hurt
me, and I think I lay awake and cried for hours as I realised that I
could never quite bridge the gulf that had opened up between the rest
and me. Then I remembered that Tom, who had worked harder than ever to
raise the wheat that sent me there, wanted me always--and I went back to
him."
Her voice fell a little, and Carrie was touched by the faint thrill in
it. She had seen Thomas Custer, a plain, somewhat hard-featured and
silent man, and yet this woman, who she fancied had once been almost
beautiful, had willingly worn out her freshness in coarse labour for
him. Then a tiny flush crept into her face as she remembered that she,
too, had a husband, one who gave her everything, and for whom she seldom
had even a smile. She was not innately selfish. Indeed, she had shown
herself capable of sacrifice. As she sat unobserved in the growing
shadow, she sighed. She wondered whether they still remembered her at
Barrock-holme, for, if they did, they had seldom written, and she
reflected sadly that she had not Mrs. Custer's consolation, since there
was nobody else who wanted her.
"You really believe this is going to be a lean year?" she said.
"I am afraid so. Still, it is scarcely likely to trouble you, except
that your husband will have a good deal to face. Tom isn't sure he was
wise in sowing so much, with wheat going down, and it seems he
considered it necessary to quarrel with the rustlers, too. They are
rather vindictive people, and it's a little astonishing they have left
him alone, though Tom thinks they or their friends had something to do
with what happened to his waggon. He met him driving home the day he was
thrown out, and told me that Charley, who had evidently had a bad fall,
looked very shaky."
Carrie started. "He was thrown out of his waggon?"
"Of course! Didn't he tell you? Well, perhaps he would be afraid of its
worrying you. It would be like Charley Leland, and here I have been
giving him away."
Carrie was troubled by an unpleasant sense of confusion as she
remembered that her husband had really told her, and what her attitude
had been; but Mrs. Custer had more to say.
"Charley Leland is going to have his hands full this year. The fall in
wheat is bad enough, and it is quite likely the rustlers will make
trouble for him. Then he must fall out with a man at the settlement, who
Tom says is in league with them. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned
that, though I almost think it was the only thing he could do."
Carrie, seeing Mrs. Annersly look up sharply, controlled herself by
force of will.
"Would you mind telling me why you think that?" she asked calmly.
Mrs. Custer appeared to be looking at her in astonishment. "You don't
know? He hasn't told you that, either?"
"No," said Carrie quietly, "he certainly hasn't."
The woman in the big chair sat silent for several moments, and then made
a little deprecatory gesture. "Even if your husband doesn't thank me for
telling you, I think you ought to know. It appears from what Tom heard,
two or three of the loungers at the hotel were talking about you.
Charley came into the verandah and heard them."
"Ah," said Carrie, with a sharpness in her voice that suggested pain,
"so that was how it came about. No doubt half the people in the
settlement know what they were saying?"
Once more Mrs. Custer appeared to consider. Like most of his friends,
she believed in Charley Leland, and it was, of course, not astonishing
that she was aware that his relations with his wife were not exactly all
they should be. This to some extent roused her resentment, and, though
she was inclined to like Carrie, she had half-consciously taken up her
husband's cause against her.
"My dear," she said, "I scarcely think I could tell you, and I really
don't believe many people know. Still, neither your husband nor the
others appear to have noticed that the inner door of the room was open,
and the man who keeps the hotel heard them. He told Tom that he wouldn't
have expected anything else from Charley Leland."
Carrie leant forward a little in her chair. "I want you to tell me
exactly what they said. It is right to my husband and myself that I
should know."
"Then you will forgive me if it hurts you. They said you had only
married him for his money, and he was no more to you than one of the
teamsters. There was a little more I couldn't mention."
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, and Carrie knew,
dark as it now was, that Mrs. Annersly was furtively watching her.
"Ah," she said, "then my husband came in?"
Mrs. Custer laughed softly. "I believe the loquacious gentleman was very
sorry for himself before Charley had done with him."
"Thank you," said Carrie, thoughtfully. "Now I think we will change the
subject. Could you manage to light the lamp, Aunt Eveline? I can't very
well get past you."
Mrs. Annersly, lighting the lamp, craftily led their visitor to talk of
Montreal; for she thought Carrie had suffered enough for the present.
In the meanwhile, Leland, who had been driving the harrows all day, and
had just come in, sat with Gallwey in the big room below. He had a
blackened pipe in his hand, and his face was thoughtful. His torn jacket
and coarse blue shirt fell away to the elbow from one almost blackened
and splendidly corded arm. The man, like most of his neighbours at that
season, was usually too weary with more than twelve hours' labour to
change his clothes when he came in, for which there was, indeed, no
great reason, since he seldom saw his wife or Mrs. Annersly in the brief
hour between his work and sleep.
"Wheat's down another cent, with sellers prevailing," he said, pointing
to several newspapers on the table. "It's 'most a pity I had fixed up to
put in the big crop. Things are quiet in Russia, and that means a good
crop; they've had rain in California, and the kind of season they wanted
in Argentina, India, and Australia. It seems to me the whole thing's
going to turn on the States' crop this year. From what I've been reading
here, they're a little scared about sowing in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
They'd swamp out all the markets if wheat jumped up just now."
"It shows very little sign of doing it," said Gallwey. "Things are going
to be a little serious as it is. A short crop in the States would give
values a fillip, but the trouble is that if they have frost or hail we
are likely to get it, too."
Leland smiled drily. "Well," he said, "if the market doesn't stiffen, we
can only go under. It would hurt to give up Prospect, but it could be
done. In the meanwhile, I've been wondering about that waggon. It took
me quite a while to screw the lock-nut on with the big box-spanner, and
the thing never loosened of itself."
"I don't think it did. The last time you drove in to the settlement,
your waggon was standing probably four or five hours behind the
Occidental. I think I'd try to find out if anybody borrowed one of
Porter's spanners when I went in again. How long was it after you threw
Jasper out, when you drove away?"
"About five minutes."
"Well, it's quite possible he did it before. I suppose you haven't asked
yourself how Jasper makes a living. He never seems to be doing anything,
and I believe it isn't difficult to buy whisky at the settlement. Thanks
to our beneficent legislature, whoever keeps it makes an excellent
profit."
Leland's face grew a trifle harder, and he closed one brown hand. "The
same thing struck me, and I guess you're right. It seems I have a good
deal against me this year. The market would have been bad enough without
the rustlers."
Gallwey rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You can count on me,
Charley, whatever comes along. There are others, too. It isn't only the
whisky men who feel they have to get even with you. You'll get what you
like to ask for, teams, men to harvest for you, and, though it's scarce
in this country, even money."
He turned away a trifle abruptly, and Leland felt a thrill of gratitude.
He had many friends on the prairie, and knew the worth of them, though
it did not occur to him that he had done quite sufficient to warrant
their good-will. Just then he was most clearly sensible that there was
much against him.
Presently Carrie came in, looking very dainty and alluring in an evening
gown. She had not yet discarded all the social conventions to which she
had been accustomed at Barrock-holme. Leland felt a stirring of his
blood as he looked at her. He rose and stood waiting, as she watched him
gravely, a faint flush in her cheeks.
"Charley," she said, and he thought how seldom she used his name, "I
have a difficult thing to do, but it would not be honest to shirk it. I
must ask you to forgive me for what I said when you told me about the
waggon."
"Why?"
The colour grew in the girl's face. "Mrs. Custer has told me that her
husband saw you."
Leland smiled somewhat bitterly. "You find it easier to believe Tom
Custer than me?"
"Please wait. What could I think when you told me? I was at the
settlement that morning, and saw your cut lips when you stood on the
verandah."
The man started a little, but he promptly recovered from his
astonishment, and looked at her with twinkling eyes.
"Now I understand," he said. "You were a little disgusted with me. The
men you are used to wouldn't have thrown any one they couldn't agree
with out of a hotel."
"No. Still, there are cases when the provocation may be too strong for
one."
"It is quite often that way with me. I'm afraid I am a little short in
temper."
He leant upon the table, as though he had nothing more to say, and
Carrie recognised that he did not mean to tell her what had led up to
the outbreak. Whether this was due to pride or generosity she did not
know, but the fact made its impression upon her. Her husband was, it
seemed, sure enough of his own purposes to disregard what others thought
of him; but there was a certain sting in the reflection. A desire on his
part to stand well in her estimation would have been more gratifying.
Still, she overcame the slight sense of mortification.
"You haven't told me what the provocation was," she said.
"No," said Leland, with a little quiet smile. "It wouldn't be quite the
thing to worry you with an explanation every time I lose my temper. I do
it now and then."
"Ah," said Carrie, "don't you care, then, what I think of you? Still, in
this case, I needn't ask you. Mrs. Custer told me that, too. That is why
I felt I must ask you to forgive me for presuming to blame you. I want
to be just, and I was in my wilfulness horribly far from being so."
"You want to be just? That was the only reason?"
The girl saw the tension in his face, and stood silent, swayed by a
whirl of confused sensations. She would not admit there was another
reason, though something in her nature clamoured for a breaking down of
the restraint between them. She had looked down on this man and wantonly
wounded him, while he had shown her what she realised was a splendid
generosity and borne her scorn in silence. It was once more his
independent silence that troubled her, and she felt just then that she
would sooner have had him compel her to acknowledge that he was not what
she had striven to think him.
"Well," he said, a trifle sadly, "I suppose I must not expect too much."
The girl's heart smote her. She knew just what he wanted her to say, but
she could not say it, and yet she meant to do all she had undertaken.
"There is a little more, and it must be said," she said. "I know part,
at least, of what those men said of me."
She stopped, and, holding herself rigidly, though one hand which she had
laid on the table quivered a little, looked at him steadily.
"If I could only prove them wrong, but I can't," she said.
A deep flush crept into Leland's face, and the veins rose swollen on his
forehead, while he grasped her shoulder almost roughly.
"Do you know what you are saying?" he asked.
"That I married you because we were poor at Barrock-holme. It was a
horrible wrong I did you--and you have made me ashamed."
The relief that swept into the man's face somewhat puzzled her, but she
had seen the anger and suspense in it a moment earlier, and her heart
throbbed painfully. After all, though she did not understand what had
troubled him, it seemed that he did care very much indeed.
"My dear," he said quietly, "if you think you have done me any wrong, it
is wiped out now. Perhaps, some day, you will go a little further than
you have done to-night, and I must try to wait for it. That is all I
have to say, and this is becoming a little painful to both of us."
He turned slowly away, and Carrie moved towards the door, but, when she
reached it, she stopped and looked back at him.
"One can be a little too generous now and then," she said.
Then the door closed, and Leland stood still, leaning on the table, with
thoughtful eyes.
"I don't know if that was a lead or not, and I don't seem able to think
just now," he said. "I'm not running Prospect, it's driving me, and I'm
ground down mind and body by the load of wheat I'm carrying."