AN UNDERSTANDING
A deep stillness hung over the prairie, and the stars were high and dim,
while the waggon jolted on. Though the team moved slowly, Leland had
apparently no wish to hurry them. A clean, aromatic smell of wild
peppermint floated about the pair on the driving-seat as the faint dew
damped the load behind them. They sat in a hollow of the fragrant grass,
and the softness and the warmth of it were pleasant, for, as sometimes
happens at that season, the night was almost chill. The other teams had
vanished, and they rode on over the vast shadowy levels alone. Every
rattle of the harness, every creak of jarring wheels, rang through the
silence with a startling distinctness.
Some vague influence in it all reacted upon the girl, and she sat very
still, pressed close against Leland's shoulder, content to be there, and
almost afraid to speak lest what she should say might rudely break the
charm. She knew now what she felt for the man at her side, and
remembered what Eveline Annersly had said. It was fit that she should
cleave to him, since they were one. Leland finally spoke:
"Urmston did not come back with you."
"No," said Carrie, realising that the crisis was at hand, and yet almost
afraid to precipitate it. "He rode in to the railroad."
Leland called to the horses before he spoke again.
"Carrie," he said slowly, "any of your friends are welcome at Prospect,
and especially Mrs. Annersly; but I have felt for some little while now
that I must ask you why that man is staying here so long."
The girl summoned her self-control with an effort, for she felt she must
play the part she had decided on; but she felt her heart beat as she
moved a little so that she could look up at her companion. He had moved,
too, and though his face showed but vaguely, she could feel that his
eyes were fixed upon her.
"The night you would not have Mrs. Heaton here, you said something that
made me very angry, though from your point of view you were right," she
said. "I think we must understand each other once for all. Do you
consider it necessary to remind me of the same thing now?"
"No," said Leland, still quietly, though there was a suggestion of
tension in his voice. "I was ashamed of it afterwards; I lost my temper.
I know you have too much pride and honesty not to keep your bargain to
the letter, and I am not in the least jealous of Urmston. You have my
ring upon your hand. How could I be? Still, one has now and then to talk
plainly. Urmston is a man who might take much for granted and presume.
Your good name is precious to me."
"Thank you for that. You do not know that there was a time when, if
circumstances had been propitious, I would have married Reggie Urmston?"
Leland appeared to smile. "I think I knew that, too."
"And you said nothing when he came here!"
"My dear," said Leland gravely, "I had by that time perfect confidence
in you. The clean pride that held you away from me would keep you safe
in spite of anything that such a man might do or say."
"Well," said Carrie, with a calm dignity, "he will never come back
again. I have sent him away."
She felt the man start, and saw his hands tighten on the reins.
"Carrie," he said, "you will tell me more if you wish; if not, it
doesn't matter. There is another thing I want to say. I have often been
sorry for you, but I felt that you would not find it quite so hard some
day. That is why I waited--I think very patiently--though it was a
little hard on me, too. I thought I knew what you must feel--indeed, you
showed it to me--and I was horribly afraid that, if I was too hasty, I
might lose you."
"And that would have troubled you?"
Leland turned again, and his voice was a trifle hoarse. "My dear, I do
not understand these things. I have been too busy to worry about my
feelings, but I know that, while I only admired you at Barrock-holme,
something else that was different soon took hold of me, and kept on
growing stronger the more I saw of you. I think it first gripped me hard
the night you told me what you thought of me--though why then I don't
know. Now I am sure, at least, that it will never let me go."
Then, his self-restraint failing him, he slipped an arm about her and
held her tightly to him. "Carrie," he said harshly, "it is getting too
hard for me. Do you know that now and then something almost drives me
into taking you into my arms and crushing you into submission? I could
do it now--the touch of you almost maddens me. This can't go on. I have
felt lately that you were growing kinder and shrank from me less. After
all, I am a man and nothing more. How long do you mean to keep me
waiting?"
Carrie laughed softly, with a little catch of her breath. "Bend your
head a little, Charley," she said, "I have something to tell you."
As he did her bidding, she, stretching up a soft, warm arm round his
neck, drew his face down to hers. His hand closed convulsively on her
waist.
"Charley," she said again, "it needn't go on any longer than you wish. I
don't want it to. I only want you to love me now."
The man laughed almost fiercely in his exultation. For a space she lay
crushed and breathless beneath his engirdling arm, with his kisses hot
upon her lips. When at last his grasp relaxed, her head, with the big
white hat all crushed and crumpled, was still upon his breast. Her
cheeks were burning, and her blood ran riot, for she was one who did
nothing by half, as she clung to him in an ecstasy of complete and
irrevocable surrender. The man broke out into a flood of disjointed,
half-coherent, unrestrained words.
"It was worth while waiting--even if I had waited years--though now and
then you almost drove me mad," he said. "Your daintiness, your pride,
the clean, hard grit that was in you, made me want to take you in my
arms and break you and make you yield. Still, I knew, somehow, that was
not the way with you, and I held myself in. It was hard--oh, it was
hard. The beauty of you, your freshness, your beautiful little hands,
even the coldness in your face, set me on fire at times. They were mine,
you belonged to me, and yet I would claim nothing that went with your
dislike. I wanted you to give them all to me."
Carrie laughed, though there was a little break in her voice. "They are
yours, and so am I. Only you must think them precious--and never let me
go."
Then she stretched her arm up and slipped it round his neck again.
"Charley, at the very first, what was it made you want to marry me?"
"Well," said Leland, with an air of reflection, "haven't you hair as
softly dusky as the sky up there, and eyes so deep and clear that one
can see the wholesome thoughts down in the depths of them? Haven't you
hands and arms that look like alabaster, until one feels the gracious
warmth beneath?"
"And a vixenish temper! If I ever show it to you, you must shake me, and
shake me hard. There was a time when you did it, and left a blue mark on
my shoulder; but I deserved it, and now I wouldn't mind. I would sooner
have you shake me every day than never think of me. Still, you haven't
told me what I asked you yet."
Leland stooped and kissed the shoulder. "When a man looks at you, he can
see a hundred reasons for wanting you, and every one sufficient."
"Still, that was not all. If you do not tell me, I shall ask Aunt
Eveline, and I think she knows. Don't you see that we must understand
everything to-night?"
"Then it seemed to me it would be a horrible thing to marry you to
Aylmer."
Carrie drew her breath in. "Oh," she said, "I always fancied it was
that, and I could love you if it was only for saving me from him." Then
she broke out into a little soft laugh. "Charley, it was the wrong
shoulder you kissed."
"That is very easily set right," and the man bent down again. As he
looked up, he called sharply to the horses, and shook the reins.
"I wonder how long we have been waiting here?" he said. "I suppose you
haven't noticed that the team has stopped?"
They rode on again, in silence seldom broken, into a land of beatific
visions. With a little wistful sense of regret, they saw Prospect at
last rise black and shadowy against the big birch bluff. The teamsters,
however, had not gone to sleep yet, and Leland, leaving the waggon to
one of them, walked silently with Carrie towards the house. He stooped
and kissed her as they crossed the threshold.
"From now on, it is home," he said. "I only want to please you, and you
must tell me when I fail."
They went in together, and he lighted the big lamp. "You had supper with
Mrs. Custer, but that is quite a while ago, and there should be a little
fire yet in the cook-shed stove," he said. "Is there anything I can make
you?"
Carrie laughed as she took off the big crumpled hat and flung it on the
table.
"No," she said, "you will sit still while I see what can be found. It
will be my part to cook and bake and wait on you. I almost think, if it
were necessary, I could drive a team, too."
They decided it by going into the cook-shed together, and, late as it
was, Carrie wasted a good deal of flour attempting to make flap-jacks
under her husband's direction, achieving a general disorder that Mrs.
Nesbit surveyed with astonishment next morning. But the good soul's
astonishment grew when she came upon Carrie setting the table in the big
room, at least half an hour before Leland came in for his early
breakfast.
"I guess you're not going to want me much longer, and it's hardly likely
that Charley Leland will, either," she said.
Carrie's face flushed. "Oh, yes," she said, "you must stay here and
teach me everything that a farmer's wife ought to know. I am afraid you
will be a long while doing it."
The hard-featured woman smiled at her in a very kindly fashion.
"You're going to find it all worth while," she said.
Carrie set about it that morning, and her sympathy with Mrs. Custer grew
stronger with every hour she spent in Mrs. Nesbit's company, for it was
evident that there was a great deal a woman could do at Prospect, too.
Indeed, although she had already taken a spasmodic interest in the work,
what she was taught before evening left her more than a little confused
and by no means pleased with herself. It was disconcerting to be brought
suddenly face to face with the realities of life and the conviction that
things did not run smoothly of themselves. She realised, for the first
time, almost with dismay, that, by coldly standing aside while the
others toiled, she had made her husband's burden heavier than it need
have been. She had, perhaps not altogether unnaturally, fallen into the
habit of assuming that it was only fit that all she desired should be
obtained for her, and had never inquired about the effort it entailed;
but, as this point of view did not seem quite warranted now, she
resolved that the future should be different. Finally realising her
obligations, she did not shrink from the responsibility.
Eveline Annersly, coming home that evening, found her sitting, deep in
thought, by the window of her room, a new softness in her eyes. She drew
up a chair close by, and sat looking at her in a shrewd way that the
girl appeared to find disconcerting.
"Carrie," she said, "I wonder if you know that you look quite as well in
that simple dress as you do in your usual evening one? Still, your hair
is a little ruffled. Surely you haven't been rubbing it against
somebody's shoulder?"
Carrie Leland blushed crimson, which was somewhat remarkable, as it was
a thing she was by no means in the habit of doing.
"Well," she said with a little musical laugh, "there was no reason why I
shouldn't. It was my husband's."
Then she rose impulsively, and, drawing up a footstool, sank down beside
Eveline Annersly, and slipped an arm about her.
"I think you know," she said. "At least, you have done what you could to
bring it about for ever so long. We are friends at last, Charley and I."
"That is pleasant to hear. Still, I'm not sure it would quite satisfy
Charley. Haven't you gone any further?"
Carrie's face was hidden as she replied, in a voice that quavered a bit.
"I think we are lovers, too," she murmured.
"Well," said her companion, "if he had known all I do, you might have
been that some time ago. In fact, it would have pleased me if he had
slapped you occasionally. If you had made him believe what you tried, it
is very probable that you would never have forgiven yourself. But I
think you ought to be more than lovers."
Feeling a tremor of emotion run through the girl, she stooped and kissed
her half-hidden cheek. Carrie looked up.
"Charley is my husband--and all that is worth having to me," she said.
"He is sure of it at last. I have told him so."
She sat silent for a minute, and then turned a little and took out a
letter.
"It's from Jimmy," she said. "It was among Charley's papers, and he gave
it to me when we came home."
"He wants something?" said Mrs. Annersly, drily.
"Yes," and Carrie's voice was quietly contemptuous. "Jimmy, it seems, is
in difficulties again. If he hadn't been, he would not have written. Of
course, it is only a loan."
"You have a banking account in Winnipeg."
"I have. I owe it to my husband's generosity, and I shall probably want
it very soon. Do you suppose that, while Charley is crushed with anxiety
and working from dawn to dusk, I would send Jimmy a penny?"
"Well," said Eveline Annersly, reflectively, "I really don't fancy it
would be advisable, but this is rather a sudden change on your part. Not
long ago you wouldn't let me say a word against anybody at
Barrock-holme."
Carrie laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. "Everything has changed.
All that is mine I want for Charley, and, while he needs it, there is
nothing for anybody else."
She stopped for a moment. "Aunt Eveline, there are my mother's pearls
and diamonds, which I think I should have had. I did not like to ask for
them, but I always understood they were to come to me when I was
married. I don't quite understand why my father never mentioned them."
Mrs. Annersly looked thoughtful. "I am under very much the same
impression. In fact, I am almost sure they should have been handed to
you. Still, what could you do with them here?"
"I may want them presently."
"In that case you had better write and ask for them very plainly."
Carrie rose, with a determined expression in her face. "Well, I must go
down," she said. "Charley will be here in a few minutes. I see the teams
coming back from the sloos."
Eveline Annersly sat thoughtfully still. The jewels in question were,
she knew, of considerable value. For that very reason, she was far from
sure that Carrie could ever have the good-will of anybody at
Barrock-holme if she insisted on her rights of possession.