Temptation
THE rush of harvest work was over. The threshing machines had gone, and
all the men were busy on some other farmer’s holding. Even Tom was away
most days helping his neighbours, as they had helped him. When all the
corn in that neighbourhood was threshed out, then would begin the task
of carrying it to Rownton for storage in the grain elevator there, until
the cars could distribute it to the markets of the world.
At first Bertha was so thankful for the cessation from driving toil and
release from the constant preparation of meals, that she just sat still
and enjoyed the quiet. Then, alas! it began to pall, and she would have
given a great deal just for the privilege of driving off in the mornings
to help some sorely pressed housewife, as Eunice had come to help her.
But this was not possible, because someone must be at home to take care
of poor helpless Grace, and all that Bertha could do in the way of
returning or passing on the kindness which had been shown to her was to
send for the Smith babies from Blow End, and keep them for the whole
four days that the engines were at the Smiths’ place, which was a very
real help indeed; for little children not old enough to know where
danger lies are apt to be a considerable care at threshing times, when
no one has a moment to spare for keeping them out of danger.
Even the babies had gone home now, and there were only their own five
small people to look after, and with no machinery about to excite their
curiosity, they required so little taking care of, that Bertha had no
worries on their account. She sat out on the veranda every day when her
housework was done, professedly sewing, but half the time with her hands
at rest, whilst her hungry gaze roamed the wide stretches of
dun-coloured stubble in search of something, anything, which would break
the monotony of those level sweeps of land, reaching on every side to
the horizon, from which the wheat had been harvested.
“Oh, what would it be to see a grove of trees, a hill, and a waterfall!”
she murmured, with such a wave of homesickness for the dear old life at
Mestlebury, that her eyes grew blurred with tears, and she had to sit
winking her eyes very hard to keep them from falling. Grace could see
through the open door to the place where Bertha was sitting, and it
would have been cruel exceedingly to let the poor thing even guess the
riot of misery which was going on in the heart of Bertha at that moment.
Suddenly she stood up and shaded her eyes with her hands, flicking away
the tears with her fingers as she did so.
“What can you see?” enquired Grace from her couch.
“There is a man riding along the trail from Pentland Broads. I wonder
who he can be?” Bertha answered.
“It would not be likely to be Tom, because he has gone in the other
direction,” replied Grace. “It may be someone coming this way on
business, or perhaps it is a visitor. Don’t worry about it, Bertha; the
creature shall not disturb your peace. Just plant him, or her—if it is
a woman—on a chair within reach of my tongue, and I will exert my
conversational powers to the utmost until I tire the visitor into going
away or until it is supper-time, just whichever comes first.”
“It is not a woman, that is certain, unless indeed it is a woman in
rational dress and riding astride,” said Bertha, laughing. “So you will
have to hold forth to a man until Tom comes home to relieve you. I never
can talk to men—I do not know what to say; and as they never by any
chance know what to say either, the result is decidedly embarrassing.”
“You may get over that some day, if you ever chance upon a congenial
spirit, that is,” replied Grace, and then she dropped into silence,
while Bertha got up and moved about in a restless fashion as the
horseman came nearer and nearer.
She felt that she could not sit still and watch him coming nearer and
nearer, for some strange instinct was telling her that he was a
messenger of fate, but whether of good or bad she could not tell. She
stirred up the embers in the stove and made the kettle boil. The arrival
might like a cup of tea, and certainly Grace would be glad of one, for
the hot weather wore her so much.
“Why, it is Mr. Long!” said Bertha, in surprise, as the horseman rode up
the paddock. “I wonder what he can have come for?”
“Have patience and you shall know,” replied Grace, with a smile, and
then a minute later the brother of Eunice Long drew rein before the
house and greeted them with western heartiness.
“I had to ride through to Sussex Gap with a telegram that was paid right
through to Jim Ford’s door, and as there were letters for you, I thought
it would just be neighbourly to ride round this way and deliver them,”
he said, with so much meaning in his manner as he looked at Bertha as to
make her blush an uncomfortable red, for Mr. Long’s intentions were
always quite painfully obvious.
But Grace came to the rescue with ready tact, calling out from her sofa,
“Oh, Mr. Long, how nice of you to come! Why, it is ages since we have
had a visitor, and now that Tom is away so much helping other people, it
is downright lonesome. Come right in and sit down; you can talk to me
while Bertha makes us a cup of tea. There are heaps of things I want to
ask about.”
Mr. Long went in as he was invited, although, truth to tell, he would
much rather have stayed outside talking to Bertha; but pity for poor
Mrs. Ellis would not allow him even to seem to neglect her. And Grace
displayed such an amazing thirst for information, that the poor man had
no chance to talk to Bertha at all, which was just what Bertha wanted;
for Mr. Long’s attempts at love-making were to the last degree
embarrassing, while no amount of civil snubbing had the least effect
upon him. He had brought two letters for Bertha, for which she was bound
to feel grateful, as otherwise she would have had to wait until the next
day or even the day after before getting them. One was from Hilda, and
the other, a thick one, from Anne.
As she had not heard by the last two mails she was very eager to open
them and read, so it was rather trying to be obliged to stay and make
tea for Mr. Long and Grace, when she was aching to shut herself up in
her room and tear open the envelopes. But there are limits to most
things, and Mr. Long had to bring his visit to a close much sooner than
he had intended, because that stupid Jim Ford had chosen to send a reply
telegram, which he had to put on the wires without too much loss of
time. However, he could come again soon, for now that harvest was almost
at an end, it would be possible to think of something besides the
eternal wheat theme, which, of course, had been the staple of thought
and conversation for the last five months or so.
“Oh, I thought that he would never be done drinking tea!” sighed Bertha,
when at last the visitor had mounted his horse and was riding away
across the paddock. “Grace, do you want me to read any of your letters
to you?” said Bertha, holding them one by one before her, so that she
could see the addresses.
“No, thanks, they will all keep until Tom comes back; meanwhile, I will
just lie and imagine what is in them, which is very good fun when one
has nothing better to do. Run along, dearie, and enjoy yourself.”
Bertha needed no second bidding. Hurrying into her room, she shut her
door and sat down by the window. She would be sure to cry—she always
did when letters came from the girls—and it did not seem right to let
Grace see the tears.
Hilda’s letter was not very long, and it was so packed with glowing
accounts of her own doings, of the lovely time she was having, and how
her music was improving under German teaching, that there was no room at
all for enquiries as to how Bertha was getting on, or how the burden of
work and responsibility was being carried.
“Anyone would think that she had not had my letter telling her about
poor Grace,” said Bertha, with a little sigh of dissatisfaction, as she
turned the sheet over, thinking that she had read it all. Then a short
sentence crammed into a corner of one of the margins caught her eye, and
she twisted the sheet round so that she could read it.
“Very sorry that Grace has had such a nasty accident. I hope
that she is quite well by this time. What a good thing that you
are with her to be a little help. I dare say that you cannot do
much, but every little counts, especially when there is sickness
in a house.”
Bertha laughed aloud, only the merriment had a hollow ring. She wondered
what Hilda would think if she could see her wrestling with the work of
every day—washing, cooking, mending, nursing, and, not least by any
means, mothering the five little ones whose mother could no longer do it
herself.
“I think that I will show it to Grace, and yet—no, I don’t think that I
will. If I were Grace I should want more fuss than that to be made over
my bad accident,” murmured Bertha, shaking her head in a dubious
fashion, and then, laying it on one side, she reached for the envelope
from Anne. When her sisters’ letters came together she always read the
one from Anne last, because it had always more affection in it, and
surely no one ever hungered for love more than Bertha.
Anne’s letter was long, and very serious in its tone. After commenting
at length on the disaster which had overtaken poor Grace, she went on—
“Now comes the question of what to do about you. My husband and
I are both of one mind in the matter, and we want you to come
out to us here. This is a sparsely settled district, and you may
find it very dull, but it will be better for you than staying
with the Ellises now that poor Grace is so helpless. They may
even be glad not to have you, as you say the house is so small.
I suppose that Tom has had to get a housekeeper. I hope, for all
your sakes, that she is a capable body. Of course, dear, I know
that you would do anything you could for Grace and Tom, but it
is not as if you were able to take hold of work and do it. I
know how our little housekeeping at Mestlebury used to bother
you, and I am afraid that you must be very uncomfortable indeed
in such a muddled life as you must be living now. I am afraid
that I was sometimes not very patient with you, but oh, I have
regretted it so sorely since, and I fear that I must often have
judged you hardly in my ignorance and rude strength. But I will
do my best to atone when I get you here, and you shall have the
very easiest life that we can make for you. Ask Tom to advance
you the money for your journey, which we will at once repay when
we know how much it is, or if it is not convenient to him to do
this, cable to us and we will get the money sent to you as
quickly as possible. Poor little Bertha! It seemed to me at the
time that I was doing my very best for you, but if I had known
what was going to happen to Grace, of course I should never have
dreamed of sending you West. I suppose that what I really ought
to have done was to bring you out here with me. But I have
always so stoutly maintained that it is not fair to a man that
he should have to be hampered with his wife’s relations, and I
tried to live up to my theory. Although if I had known my
husband then as well as I know him now, I should have understood
how little difference it would have made. He is so good and
kind, that he would welcome not merely you, but Hilda also.
Therefore, little sister, have no doubts about your welcome, but
come to us as soon as you can.”
There was more of the same sort, and when she had read it a wave of the
most terrible homesickness swept over Bertha. It seemed to her that she
simply could not bear the hard life that she was living for another day.
She must get out of it somehow, oh, she must, she must! Grace and Tom
had no right to expect so much of her; it was not fair. Her sisters
never expected her to be capable and efficient, and why should other
people put such heavy burdens upon her?
It was true that Tom had generously increased her salary, and would have
given her still more, only, knowing the struggle he was having, she
would not accept it. But if he could pay her, of course he could pay
someone else instead, and then she might slip the burden of this
distressful family from her shoulders. Then she would go out to
Australia and settle down to the old life of irresponsible ease, with
nothing to do but to dream dreams and think noble thoughts. She might
even attain to fame as a story-writer, although she was a little dubious
about this, as a farm in the back-blocks of Australia did not seem
exactly the place for acquiring knowledge.
“And it is knowledge that I need most of all,” murmured Bertha to
herself, as she sat with the letter tightly clasped in her hand.
It was her only bit of wisdom to know that before she could write with
any sort of power she must have knowledge, far more knowledge than at
present she possessed. But her one idea of knowledge was that it must be
gained from books, whereas by far the most valuable knowledge is gained
at first hand by experience and observation.
“They must find a housekeeper and let me go; oh, they must let me go!”
she muttered, standing up and stretching out her arms towards that point
of the compass where she imagined Australia to be. “Oh, Anne, Anne, why
didn’t you take me with you at the first?”
But she had inadvertently spoken aloud, and it was the sound of her own
voice which aroused her to an understanding of her own selfishness. It
was then that she realized it was more a desire for her own ease than
from such a sick desire to see her sister that she was so anxious to go
to Australia.
“Oh, what a horrible, low-down sort of nature mine must be, for it is
only my own ease that I am thinking about!” she exclaimed, with an
impatient shrug, and, springing to her feet, she bustled about her room
for a few moments, just to get rid of those telltale marks of tears on
her face, the sight of which would be sure to make poor Grace
uncomfortable. Then presently she went out to the other room, to find
Grace with an open letter in her hand.
“Why, why, however did you manage that?” demanded Bertha, for none of
the children were in the house, and the letter had not been opened when
she went to her room.
“I did it myself,” said Grace, with a sob of pure happiness. “Oh,
Bertha, darling Bertha, I do believe that I am going to get better, for
see, I can hold that finger and thumb quite close together, and I
managed to scratch the envelope across that spike in the wall. I reached
out to it, do you understand?”
“Hush, hush, you must not excite yourself so much or you may do yourself
an injury,” said Bertha soothingly, for she was fairly frightened by the
blaze in the eyes of Grace; then she said quietly, “I have noticed that
you were getting more power. Eunice Long pointed it out to me when she
was here helping at harvest time. But we did not say anything, because
we did not know whether the improvement would go on, and it seemed so
cruel to raise hopes that were not going to be realized.”
“But they are going to be realized now, oh, I am sure of it! Oh, to
think that there is a ray of hope for me after all these weeks and weeks
of black despair! Bertha, Bertha, do you know what it will mean to me
and to my poor dear Tom?” and she burst into a fit of sobbing, her brave
self-control breaking down at this tiny ray of hope, as it had never
broken down since her hard fate overtook her.
Bertha dropped on her knees beside the couch, soothing Grace as she
would have soothed one of the children. Such stormy emotion must surely
be bad for the invalid, and it would shake the feeble spark of life in
the helpless body, might indeed even shake it out, or so in her
ignorance she feared. But Grace was soon quiet again, only there was a
deep glow of happiness in her eyes, and the radiance of hope on the face
which had grown so wan from the weeks of hopeless helplessness.
“Often and often I would have prayed to die, if it had not been for
Tom,” said Grace, after a while, when she had grown calm enough to speak
of this wonderful hope which had come to her. “But he said to me, on
that first day when I realized that I was as helpless as a log, that he
would rather have me like that than not have me at all, and that I
should be ten times more his inspiration than I had been. So for his
sake I had to keep hold of life for a little while, at least, until he
and the children could do without me. But I don’t think that my courage
for the effort would have held out if it had not been for you, dear. If
I had seen the children neglected, or Tom bowed down with more worries
than he could stagger under, I should have turned coward, and asked the
good, kind Father in Heaven to take me out of this evil world, and spare
me the sight of misery that I had no power to relieve. If I get better I
shall owe it to you, for you have kept the hope alive in my heart.”
Bertha got on to her feet in a scrambling, unsteady fashion and rushed
out on to the veranda. She was afraid that Grace would be able to read
all the miserable selfish thoughts and desires that were in her heart,
and she did not want to be despised at this the very sweetest moment in
all her life.
No, she would not go to Australia, she could not. Anne and Hilda must
think what they liked about her incapacity and general helplessness. She
must be of some use in the world, for she had given Grace the courage to
keep alive. It was a joy that more than repaid her for the hard toil,
the monotony, and the unloveliness of her life. But the trouble was that
the temptation would keep coming back, and for weeks afterwards, while
the shortening days crept down to winter, and the sting of bitter cold
came into the little house on the prairie, Bertha was fighting her
longings for a life of leisured ease.