The Land of Promise: A Comedy in Four Acts (1922) Page 7
"Doesn't she ever rest?" asked Nora in an undertone of Hornby.
"Never," he whispered. "Her one recreation is abusing me. I fancy you'll come in for a little of the same medicine. She's planning an amusing winter, I can see that already."
"I think, if I may, I'll ask you to excuse me," said Nora, rising abruptly. "I'm a little tired after my long journey. Oh, how good it'll be to find oneself in a real bed again."
"I'm sure you must be," said her brother. "Nora knows where her room is?" he said, turning to his wife.
"She was up before supper; she can't very well have forgotten the way. The house is small after what she's been accustomed to, I dare say."
"Thank you, I can find it again easily," said Nora hastily. "I'll see you at breakfast, Eddie?" She crossed over to where Gertie was sewing busily. "Good night--Gertie. I hope you will not find me too stupid about learning things. You'll find me willing, anyway," she said almost humbly.
Gertie looked up at her with real kindness.
"Wllling's half the battle," she said in softened tone.
As Nora was leaving the room, satisfied at having done her part as far as Gertie was concerned, she was recalled by Taylor's drawling tone.
"Oh, Miss Nora, you're forgetting something."
"Am I? What?"
"You're forgetting to say 'good night' to me."
"Why, so I am!"
She could hear them laugh as she left the room. And so ended the first day in her brother's house.
Breakfast the next morning was of the most hurried description. Gertie herself did not sit down until the men had gone, being chiefly occupied with baking some sort of hot cakes which were new to Nora, who confined herself to an egg and some tea. She secretly longed for some toast; but as no one else seemed to have any, she refrained from making her wants known. Perhaps later, when she was more familiar with the ways of this strange household, she would be permitted to make some for herself when she wanted it.
While her sister-in-law was eating her breakfast, Nora stood looking out of the window at the vast expanse of snow-covered country with never a house in sight. Already there were signs that Taylor's prophecy would be fulfilled. The sun, which had been up only a few hours, shone brightly, and already the air had lost much of its sharpness. It was distinctly warmer than it had been the day before.
At the first sign that Gertie had finished her breakfast, Nora began to gather the things together for washing, wisely not waiting to ask permission. If possible, Gertie seemed to be less inclined for conversation in the early morning than at night. They finished the task in unbroken silence. When the last dish had been put away, Gertie spoke:
"Can you bake?"
"I have baked cakes."
"How about bread and biscuits?"
"I've never tried them."
"Umph!"
"I should be glad to learn, if you would be good enough to teach me."
"I have little time for teaching," said Gertie ungraciously. "But you can watch how I do it and maybe you'll learn something."
"Can you wash and iron?" said Gertie while she was kneading her dough.
"Of course I can iron and I can wash lace."
"People round here wear more flannel shirts than lace. I suppose you never washed any flannels?"
"No, never."
"Have you ever done any scrubbing?"
"Of course not." Nora was beginning to find this catechism a little trying.
"Not work for a lady, I suppose. Just what does a companion do?"
"It depends. She does whatever her employer requires; reads aloud, acts as secretary, goes riding and shopping with the lady she lives with, arranges the flowers, everything of that sort."
"Oh. But nothing really useful."
Nora gave an angry laugh. "It's clear that some people consider a companion's work useful, since they employ them."
"You take pay for it; after all, it's much the same as being a servant."
"It's not at all the same."
"Ed tells me that sometimes when Miss Wickers, Wickham--whatever her name was----"
"Miss Wickham."
"That when Miss Wickham had company for dinner, you had to have your dinner alone."
"That is true."
"Then she considered you sort of a servant," said Gertie triumphantly. Nora was silent. Gertie having cut her dough into small round pieces with a tin cutter and put them into her pans, went toward the oven.
"And yet you object to eating at the same table with the hired men."
Having satisfied herself that the oven was at the proper heat, she shut the door with a bang.
"I've said nothing about it."
"You didn't need to."
"But I most certainly do object to it and I can't for the life of me see the necessity of it."
"I was what you call a servant for years; I suppose you object to eating at the table with me."
"What perfect nonsense! It's not at all the same thing. You're my brother's wife and the mistress of his house."
"Yes, I'm the mistress of the house all right," said Gertie grimly.
"Frank Taylor's an uncommonly handsome man, isn't he?"
"I really haven't noticed."
"What perfect nonsense!" mimicked Gertie. "Of course you've noticed. Any woman would notice him."
"Then I must be different from other women."
"Oh, no, you're not; you only think you are. At bottom women are all alike, take it from me, and I've known a few."
"If I can be of no help to you here, I think I'll go and unpack my box," said Nora. She felt as if she had borne all she possibly could.
"As you like."
Once in her own room, Nora found it hard to keep back her angry tears. Only the thought that her reddened eyes would betray her to Gertie at dinner kept her from having a good cry.
CHAPTER VII
That one morning was a fair sample of all the other days. Each suspected the other, neither would make allowances or concessions. As a consequence, day by day the breach widened. Even Eddie, who was more unobserving than most men, felt vaguely uncomfortable in the surcharged atmosphere. From the first Nora realized that it was an unequal contest; Gertie was too strongly intrenched in her position. But it was not in her nature to refrain from administering those little thrusts, which women know so well how to deal one another, from any motive of policy. The question of what she should do once her brother's house became intolerable she never permitted herself to ask.
In the needle-pricking mode of warfare she was, of course, far more expert than her rival. But if Gertie's hand was clumsy it was also heavy. And always in the back of her mind was the consciousness that she, so to speak, had at least one piece of heavy artillery which she could bring up once the enemy's fire became unendurable.
During the day, the men being out of the house except at meal time, there was to a certain degree, a cessation of hostilities. Nora gradually acquired some knowledge of housework. She learned to cook fairly well and always helped with the washing, rarely complaining of her aching arms and back. The only indication she had that she was making progress was that Gertie complained less. Praise, of course, was not to be expected.
At dinner the men were usually too anxious to get back to work--always with the exception of Hornby, who according to his own highly colored account, had been assigned the herculean task of splitting all the wood required by the Province of Manitoba for the ensuing winter--to linger longer than the time required for smoking a hurried pipe, so that it was only during the long evenings that hostilities were resumed. And then, more or less under cover.
There was one person upon whom Nora could openly vent her nervous irritation after a long day in Gertie's society, and that was Frank Taylor. They quarreled constantly, to the great amusement of the others. But with him, too, she felt hopelessly at a disadvantage. He was maddeningly sure of himself, and while he sometimes gave back thrust for thrust, he never lost his temper. Seemingly, nothing could penetrate his ar
mor of good nature, nor make him comprehend that she really meant her bitter words. Slow of movement and speech, his mind was alert enough, and Nora had to admit to herself, although she always openly denied it, that he had humor. To lose one's own temper in a wordy passage at arms and find one's opponent still smiling and serene is not a soothing experience.
Often, in the darkness of the night after she had gone to bed, she could feel her cheek burn at the recollection that this 'ignorant clod,' as she contemptuously called him to herself, had the power to make her feel a weak, undisciplined child by merely never losing his self-control.
There would have been consolation in the thought that in his stupidity he did not understand how she despised him, how infinitely beneath her she considered him, had it not been darkened by the suspicion that he understood perfectly well and didn't care.
How dared he, how dared he!
She had complained of his familiar manner to her brother a day or two after her arrival. But he had given her neither support nor consolation.
"My dear Nora," he said, "we are not back in England. The sooner you forget all the old notions of class and class distinctions, the happier you'll be. They won't go here. As long as a man's straight, honest and a worker--and Frank's all three--it doesn't make any odds whether he's working for himself or for someone else. We're all on the same footing. It is only due to the fact that I've had two good years in succession that I'm not somebody's 'hired man' myself."
"Don't, Eddie, don't; you don't realize how you hurt me."
"My dear girl, I'm sorry; but I'm in dead earnest."
"You, a hired man? Oh, I can't believe it."
"It's true, nevertheless. Plenty of better fellows than I have had to do it. When you're starting in, unless you have a good deal bigger capital than I had, you only need to be hailed out, frosted out, or weeded out a couple of years in succession to use up your little stake, and then where are you?"
"What do you mean by 'weeded out'?"
He was just about to explain when a halloo from the stables cut him short. "There's Frank now. I ought to be out helping him this minute; we've got a good stiff drive ahead of us. You ask Gertie about it, she'll explain it to you."
But Gertie had been deeply preoccupied with some domestic problem and Nora had forborne to question her. She had intended returning to the subject that evening, but Eddie and Gertie were deep in one of their conferences until nearly bedtime. It would never have suggested itself to her to seek any information from the objectionable Frank, so under cover of a heated discussion between him and Trotter, she appealed to Reggie.
"What does it mean to be weeded out?"
"Oh, Lord, I don't know! Kicked out, I suppose. Isn't there something in the Bible about tares and wheat?"
"Nonsense; it doesn't mean that. I'd forgotten, by the way, how strong you were on Biblical references. Do you remember your discussion about Sarah and Benjamin with Agnes Pringle?"
"Of course I do. And I completely stumped her; don't you recollect?"
"Goose! She only wanted to make you look it up for yourself. But being 'weeded out' is something disastrous that happens to the farmers here, like having the crops frozen."
"Well, it hasn't happened since I've been here, anyway. But I'll bet you a bob it means kicked out. I tell you, I'll ask Gertie if she doesn't think that I ought to be weeded out."
"You'd better not," laughed Nora.
The first open quarrel had taken place one day at dinner.
The night before Nora had proposed making her first attempt at baking bread. Gertie had given a grudging consent. Everything had gone well until the bread, once in the oven, Nora had gone to her room to add some pages to a long letter which she had begun, some evenings before to Agnes Pringle.
Gertie had been out in one of the barns most of the morning engaged in some mysterious task which she had been reserving until the weather became milder--there had been a decided thaw, setting in the day before--and Nora intended to be gone only a short time.
Filled with a warm feeling of gratitude to Miss Pringle for her generous loan of the ten-pound note, she was writing her a long letter in the form of a diary describing her voyage across the Atlantic and the trip across the Continent, both of which she was sure would greatly interest her friend and furnish her with topics for her tête-à-tête dinners with the excellent Mrs. Hubbard for some days to come.
Of the difficulties and disappointments in her new life she was resolved to say nothing. Nora hated to confess that she had failed in anything. And, so far, she could hardly say that she had made a success. Later on, she might have to acknowledge that her move had been a mistake. But for the moment she would confine herself to describing all that struck her as novel and strange while the impression was still fresh, while she still had the 'seeing eye.'
"When I came to the end of my last page (and I remember that I was getting extremely sleepy at that point)," she wrote, "I had just finished describing the exterior of my brother's house to you. I am sure I can never do justice to the interior! You can never have seen, much less imagined, anything in the least like it. I have decided, upon reflection, that it is the most un-English thing I have seen yet: and I have not forgotten those strange railway carriages either.
"Try to imagine a large room, longer than it is deep, at once living-room, dining-room and kitchen; with nothing but rough brown boards for walls, on which--some framed, some unframed--are the colored supplements of the Christmas illustrated papers, both English and American. Over one of the doors is a magnificent trophy--at least that is what we would call it at home--I think it is a moose. I am not at all sure, although I have been told more than once. Over another door is a large clock, such a one as one finds in a broker's office with us. The floor is covered with what is called oilcloth--I wonder why: it certainly is not the least like cloth--very new and excessively shiny. It has a conventional pattern in black and white, and when the sun shines on it, it quite dazzles one's eyes.
"There are two windows, one to the south, the other looking west. The western view is magnificent. I feel as if I could see straight away to the setting sun! In the summer, when the prairie is one great waving green sea, it must be superb. Two days ago it was covered with snow. As I write, I can see great patches of brown every here and there, for we have had a sudden thaw. The window sills are filled with geraniums planted, my dear, in tins which once contained syrup, of which everyone here, including my brother, seems extravagantly fond. The syrup jug appears regularly at every meal and is almost the first thing put on the table. I have yet to acquire a taste for it--which they all think extremely queer.
"The furniture consists of two American rockers and a number of kitchen chairs; an unvarnished deal dresser covered with earthenware;--I don't think there are any two pieces that match!--two tables, one a dining table; a bookcase containing a few paper-backed novels and some magazines, none so recent, however, as those I saw before I left England; and last and most important, an enormous American cooking stove.
"Our principal meal, called dinner, is----"
Great heavens, her bread!
Nora dashed from her room. Gertie was standing at one of the windows in the unwonted indulgence of a moment's leisure. Nora threw open the oven door. It was empty.
"Oh, did you look after my loaf, Gertie? I'm so sorry; I quite forgot it."
"Yes, I took it out a few moments ago."
She still had her face turned toward the window, so Nora did not see the smile that curled her lip. She turned after a moment, and the two women began to set the table for dinner.
Presently the men were heard laughing outside as they cleaned their muddy boots on the scraper. Reggie had apparently achieved something new. His ignorance of everything pertaining to farming furnished the material for most of the amusement that was going. Fortunately, he was always good-natured. Gertie, with unusual good spirits, entered into the joke of the thing at once and even bantered Reggie playfully upon his latest discovery.
"Why, Gertie, I----"
"It's all right," said Gertie, without looking up from pouring the tea. "I took it. I'll get it in a minute. Come, sit down."
Nora obeyed.
Hornby was just about to begin his explanation for whatever it was he had done, when Eddie interrupted him:
"Hold on a minute, Reg. I want some bread. I declare you two girls are getting to be as bad as Reggie, here. Setting a table without bread!"
"I was keeping it for a surprise," said Gertie, getting up slowly. "I want you to appreciate the fact that Nora helped me by doing the baking this morning." Nora's face flushed with pleasure as her brother patted her on the shoulder with evident approval. She looked at Gertie with eyes shining with gratitude. At that moment she came nearer liking her sister-in-law than she ever was to again.
Gertie went slowly across the room--she usually moved with nervous quickness--and picking up the missing bread plate from where it was leaning against the wall behind the stove went into the little pantry that gave off the kitchen. Slowly she returned and stood beside her husband's chair. On the plate, burned almost to a cinder, was the loaf of bread that Nora had forgotten.
"Here it is," said Gertie. Her smile was cruel.
"Oh, I say, Gertie, that's too bad of you." It was Frank who spoke.
"Too bad!" Nora sprung to her feet with flashing eyes. "Too bad. It's mean and despicable. There are no words to do it justice. But what could I expect from----"
"Nora!" said her brother sharply.
Nora rushed from the table to her room. And although Eddie knocked repeatedly at her door and begged her to let him speak with her if only for a moment that evening at supper-time, she made no sign nor did anyone see her again that night.
She made a point of not coming down to breakfast the next morning until after the time when the men would be gone. She thought it best to meet Gertie alone. It was time that they came to some sort of understanding. To her surprise and annoyance Taylor was still at the table. Gertie was nowhere to be seen.