Great Expectations
SPRING was coming. The feel of it was in the air, and though howling
winds and driving rains swept over the plain, while the earth was like a
quag on Duck Flats, everyone remarked how fine the weather was, which
meant what a welcome change it was after months on months of snow, of
frost, and of winds so keen that they seemed to scorch and sear the
skin. Bertha sang about her work in the mornings now; it was sheer
gladness of heart, because the white covering had gone from the ground
and the brown earth was showing once again. The day that the first
plough was put into the ground was like a festival, and then followed
weeks of such strenuous labour, that there was scarcely time to get
through the allotted toil between sunrise and sunset, and they all went
to bed to fall at once into dreamless sleep until morning came again.
She had a salary now, just the money that Grace would have paid to a
hired help, and the feeling of independence which it gave her ministered
not a little to her happiness and content. But the real fount and spring
of her happiness lay in the fact that she had begun to write, and that
already, young though she was, the sweet of a tiny success had come to
her.
By the advice of Grace she had let poetry severely alone. There was no
demand for it, and however fond of writing poetry people might be, they
rarely cared to read much of it; there was not absorbing interest enough
in it. So Bertha had tried her prentice hand upon a short story, and
then had gone almost delirious with joy when it was accepted and paid
for. But not a word did she say in her letters to Hilda or to Anne of
the good thing which had come into her life. It would be time enough for
that when she had done something bigger, and all her hopes were centred
now on having a book published. If only she could manage that, it would
serve as something to show for her labour. So she thought of it by day
and dreamed of it at night, while little by little, like the building of
a house, the story took on form and shape in her brain.
It was so strange to her to have someone to whom she could talk of her
hopes and aspirations. She would never have dreamed of talking to her
own sisters as she talked to Grace. They would have laughed at her, and
would have said to each other in pitying tones, “If only Bertha were
more practical and did not dream so much, what a good thing it would
be!”
But Grace seemed always to understand that dreams were the great factor
in Bertha’s happiness, and that she could not be happy without them. It
was that power to understand which gave Grace the influence on her young
cousin’s life. Bertha had not been at Duck Flats for a week before it
had seemed quite possible to her to tell Grace everything that was in
her heart. She had even confided in Mrs. Ellis the story of that one
brave deed of hers which had brought so much discomfort to the three
girls, and incidentally had left so much mortification behind it.
Bertha had never been able to tell Anne of what the German had told her,
about how the stranger had left money with old Mrs. Saunders to be given
to her for saving his life, but which the old woman had kept for her own
private use.
“And I have always felt quite certain that the old woman could have told
me of his whereabouts if she had liked, only she was afraid that he
would find out about her keeping the money,” said Bertha. “But what I
never could understand was why he never came to see what had become of
his coat and his diamonds.”
“Diamonds?” echoed Grace, in amazement. “My dear Bertha, what are you
talking about?”
“They may not be diamonds at all, nothing, in fact, but pebbles from the
Micmac shoals,” laughed Bertha. “But you shall see them, and then you
will be able to tell me, perhaps.”
She went off to her room and unearthed the coat and the little case from
among her belongings, and then told Grace how the man had thrown the
coat round her because she shivered so; she had run home in it, and then
it had lain in a corner of her room until she was well.
“They are diamonds, I am sure of it,” said Mrs. Ellis, in a tone of
conviction. “Tom had an uncle, an old Welshman, who had some choice
uncut diamonds in his possession, and Tom has often told me that they
looked just like dirty pebbles, only they were so very, very hard, that
they could not possibly be mistaken by anyone who had any knowledge of
such things. Do you mind if I tell Tom about these, and ask him to look
at them?”
“Of course not. But it does make me so fearfully uncomfortable to have
the things in my possession like this. I feel as if I had stolen them,”
said Bertha, who was very much relieved because at last the story was
off her mind, and the knowledge shared by someone else.
Grace laughed. “Oh, you poor little Bertha, you are the sort of child
that it takes a mother to understand. I expect that Anne and Hilda would
about cry themselves blind if they thought they had in any way failed in
their duty to you, and yet, poor girls, they could never get at the
heart of you, while you have opened out to me like the rosebuds to the
sun.”
Bertha shuffled uneasily. “It was my fault, of course,” she said
stiffly. “But I had a downright morbid dislike of being laughed at or
criticised, so I mostly kept things to myself.”
“Well, I shall laugh at you and criticise you, and when you shut
yourself up like an oyster I shall worm things out of you somehow, so be
prepared,” said Grace, and she had been true to her word.
Mr. Ellis had looked at the diamonds which were in the case, and he had
declared them to be very valuable indeed. “There is no mistaking them,
and they are worth many thousands of dollars. I wish you had not got
them, Bertha; it is horrid to think of your being bothered with valuable
stuff like that.”
“Put them into the bank,” suggested Grace.
But Bertha shook her head. “I don’t think I will,” she said slowly. “It
would only cause comment and speculation, perhaps; for how could a girl
as poor as I am become possessed of diamonds like these in an ordinary
way? Besides, I may some day encounter the man to whom they belong, and
then I can restore them without any fuss, don’t you see? If no one knows
that I have them, there is no danger of their being stolen.”
“The house might burn down,” suggested Grace.
“That would not matter at all so far as the diamonds are concerned, for
I keep them in my tin trunk, and there is little danger of a diamond
robbery right out in the heart of the prairie,” said Bertha; and then
she carried the little morocco case back to her room and put it, with
the coat, in the bottom of the tin trunk, after which they sat and
talked of Tom’s old uncle, the Welshman, who had brought him up, then
quarrelled with him, and cast him off in his young manhood just when
most he needed a friend to help him.
“But I have got on in spite of being left to my own devices,” said Tom,
with pardonable pride in his own achievements, and then he went on more
soberly. “But it upsets me to think that the old man would persist in
believing that I wanted his money. I was a great deal more keen on
having someone to care for. Perhaps I ought to have been more patient
with him. But when he was always flinging it at me that I was hanging
round for the chance of what I could get out of him, it riled me so
badly that I just cleared out and came west.”
“How hard it must have been for you!” murmured Bertha, who already knew
Tom Ellis well enough to understand that his loneliness must have been
frightful.
“It was about as rough as I cared for,” he answered. “When I got off the
cars at Winnipeg I had only half a dollar left, so I had to go to work
sharp, and not stand too fine as to what sort of job I got. I did
anything I could get for two years, and then, as I had saved a little
money, I pre-empted on a quarter section of land out here, lived on it
for six months in each year to fulfil requirements, and the other six
months I went east and earned enough to keep me going.”
“And that is where Grace came in, I suppose?” There was keen interest in
Bertha’s tone. She was remembering that Anne and Hilda had always
maintained that Grace had married beneath her, but surely a man who
could carve his way through difficulties like these was well worth
caring for. It was far more to his credit that he had carved his own
way, than if he had still hung on with his uncle, bearing all sorts of
abuse meekly for the sake of the gain which might come to him later.
The coming of the spring made a vast difference to the comfort of the
little house on the prairie. There seemed so much more room to move now,
for the children were out from morning to night, not even coming indoors
to eat if they could only get their food given to them out-of-doors. The
work of the house could much of it be done outside also. Tom Ellis had
fitted up a bench and a table on the veranda, and here the washing of
dishes and the washing of clothes, with many other similar activities,
could be carried on—which lessened the work in no small degree.
Another horse had been bought to help with the spring ploughing and
seeding, and when the corn was all in, Tom bought a side-saddle from a
man who had no further use for it, and insisted on Grace going out for
rides with him. He would have taken Bertha also, but she was not good at
that sort of locomotion, and greatly preferred being left at home to
look after the house and the children in the long quiet evenings, while
Tom and Grace went for long expeditions among their own crops or those
of their widely scattered neighbours. Then, with the cares of the day
all done, and the children asleep or at play, Bertha enjoyed herself in
her own way, working at the book which was to make her famous, as she
fondly hoped, or merely dreaming dreams.
She was sitting so one evening, when the twins and Noll were safe in
bed, while Dicky and Molly worked hard at making a flower garden in one
corner of the paddock, which they had dug up and were planting with wild
columbine, common blue violets, early milk vetch, and silver weed, which
she had helped them to dig up and bring home earlier in the evening. It
was getting late, but Bertha had not noticed it; indeed, she was
oblivious to most things just then, except the very pleasant dreams in
which she was indulging, of being able to earn enough money by
literature to keep her from the necessity of doing anything else. Her
arms ached with breadmaking, washing, and ironing, and all the other
activities of the prairie day, where, if one does not do the work with
one’s own hands, it has to go undone. Then up sauntered Dicky, his spade
over his shoulder, while Molly trailed limply along behind.
“We’re about done, Bertha, put us to bed,” said the small boy, dropping
in a heap on the floor, because he was quite too tired to stand up any
longer.
“Very well, I will bath Molly while you eat some supper, and then you
can bath yourself, because you are a man, or soon will be,” said Bertha,
coming out of her dreams with an effort, and thinking how delightful it
would be for her when these minor worries such as bathing children and
that sort of thing were lifted from her.
“Oh, I had rather go to bed as I am to-night, and I can’t be very dirty,
for I had a dreadful big wash yesterday,” sighed Dicky, who had rolled
over on to his back, and was surveying the rising moon with a very
sleepy gaze.
Bertha laughed. “I wonder what the sheets would be like to-morrow if you
went to bed as you are,” she said, as she picked up Molly—that being
the quickest way of getting the little girl into the house. “Suppose you
get your buttons all undone while you are waiting, and then it won’t
take you so long.”
By the time Molly’s bedtime toilet was complete, the little evening
prayer said, and the child had trotted off to bed, Dicky was fast asleep
on the veranda floor, and Bertha had to undress him and put him into the
water before he roused at all; even then he was almost asleep again
before she could get him into bed.
“Oh dear, why could he not have kept awake a little longer!” she
exclaimed, going back to her dreaming, only to find the spell broken,
and that a strange restlessness had taken possession of her which would
not let her even sit still.
“I wonder when Grace and Tom are coming home?” she said to herself, as
the twilight, grey and mysterious, crept over the prairie. A flock of
birds flew shrilling overhead, and then there was silence unbroken and
profound.
Unable to bear the oppression of the quiet, Bertha went into the house,
looked at the sleeping children, lighted a lamp, but remembering that
the petroleum was getting low, she put it out again and went
out-of-doors, because, after all, the silence and the waiting were more
bearable out there than inside the close little house. Then a great sigh
close at hand startled her almost into a fit, until the sound of a
subdued munching reached her ears, and she realized that it was only the
third horse which was feeding with the cow in the paddock that had
frightened her so badly.
“Oh dear, how silly it is to be afraid!” she cried, pressing her hand
over her fluttering heart. “I don’t suppose there is a creature within
three miles of the place, unless, indeed, Tom and Grace are nearly home.
But we shall be fearfully tired to-morrow if we are so late going to bed
to-night.”
Her panic passed off presently. It was really very pleasant sitting out
there in the cool darkness, and, almost without knowing it, she began to
get drowsy. But she must not go to sleep, oh, that would never do!
Shaking herself vigorously, she sat erect for about five minutes, and
then—
But it must have been hours later, and the night was growing very cold,
when she awoke with a start to hear a long sobbing breath close beside
her.