Settlers of the Marsh (12 page)
“When Olga was still here,” Mrs. Lund said to Niels one day, “I could go to the city in winter. Daddy was still able to get along by himself ⦠But daddy is getting to be like a child, Mr. Lindstedt. He cannot be trusted any longer alone. He cannot be trusted ⦔
“Oh mamma,” said Lund, “how you talk!”
But he sat in his wicker chair which was fraying more and more and which would soon break and fall in a heap. Even his meals were now served to him there: pancakes and
molasses
three times a day â¦
“But Nelson ⦔ Niels said.
“Don't mention Nelson,” Mrs. Lund exclaimed. “The least said, the best ⦔
N
IELS CLEARED
his land â¦
Spring came.
He enlarged his stable and built a chicken house. He sold hay â¦
Then breaking and seeding, with
propitious
weather towards the end of April. He had eighteen acres in crop, six of wheat, four of oats, and the rest in barley.
T
HIS SPRING
, one day, Lund disappeared. No one knew where he had gone. For a few days the excitement was great. Everybody helped in the search â¦
Then ⦠Well ⦠Mrs. Lund went to Odensee and opened a little store. Bobby went to Nelson's. He was cheap help; you don't pay a brother-in-law the regular wages; you give him a little pocket-money, that is all â¦
T
HE SUMMER WENT BY
. Sunday afternoons in the open, north of the house in the bush â¦
Working out in the threshing crews ⦠Niels bought a team of pure-bred
Percherons
, an enormous gelding, a mare for breeding, with filly and in foal â¦
A
ND WINTER
again â¦
Between Niels and Ellen a friendship had sprung up; an intimate friendship ⦠And yet â¦
Niels was not quite sure of his impression; but he thought he noticed a change, an ever so slight change in her of late â¦
She was almost gay when, apart from himself, the old man was present. But when he saw her alone, there seemed to be something of restraint in their intercourse. Sometimes he thought this restraint arose from him: from his efforts to hold back the all-important question. At other times he was fully convinced that, on the contrary, there was something she wished to say and held back â¦
When a silence fell ⦠Always their intercourse had been full of silences; but they had been more friendly even, more companionable than their conversations ⦠When a silence fell, they seemed to drift apart. Ellen was apt to muse along lines of her own ⦠An expression as of sadness and pity came over her â¦
Yet, since more and more he persuaded himself that she knew, that she must know, he also became convinced that she accepted his courtship; that silently all things were agreed upon â¦
The strange thing was that, whenever he felt surest of himself, the next moment there came over him a realisation as if what he longed for had somehow become quite impossible of fulfilment â¦
Then he sought for a pretext to leaveâwhich Ellen did not contradict â¦
A
FTER CHRISTMAS
the true western winter came: with winds that roared through the bush and leapt careering over the edge of the Marsh to hit the bluff with sounds of
cannonading
.
Snow-sheets were whirled and flung; forts were thrown up, and trenches dug; and the world seemed to reel and to dance madly about the big house which he had painted white by now: the house which Niels had built for Ellen â¦
On such days, when work in the open became impossible, Niels went about in those large rooms that were like a coat too loose about his shoulders.
Every now and then he would go out, over his sheltered yard, and look in on the horses and the cow; and then he would stroll over to the gate which remained open now. There, the wind would strike him, whistling or moaning around the corner of the bluff, and throw the snow into his face in a fine, prickling, pelting dust â¦
He would go back to the house and open boxes and bundles and take out stuffs for curtains: plain, white
scrims
, and others with coloured borders; and he would hold them up against the bare windows and fold them again and put them away â¦
Or he would take a book and read for a while: books he almost knew by heart: the English Bible, old magazines, some volumes of reports of the Department of Agriculture â¦
When night fell, at five, he would go once more and feed his horses and milk his cow â¦
And sometimes, on such days, he would then go to bed and lie and dream wakeful dreams and perhaps get up again: perhaps to put wood in the stove; and perhaps merely to walk about once more â¦
At other times he would put on sheep-skin and leggings and fight his way blindly across the ribbon of the Marsh that intervened between his and Sigurdsen's places â¦
T
HE OLD MAN
was getting to be stranger and stranger. Sometimes he would talk to himself for a long while, taking no notice of Niels' presence.
“Hi ⦠tya,” he would say. “Listen to the wind. That's the rigging howling! How she keels over! Mind, George, that girl in Copenhagen? Hi ⦠tya! She laugh ⦔
He had been a sailor in his day.
Niels would nod. He understood that the old man was talking to the phantoms of his youth. Strange, disquieting things he would sometimes say, trailing off into Icelandic which Niels understood only half: things that seemed to withdraw a veil from wild visions, incomprehensible in one so old â¦
“Tya ⦠Yo, she laugh ⦠and she turn her hips. And her breasts ⦠Hi ⦠tya. And she bite! Sharp teeth she had, the hussy ⦔
And this decay of the human faculties, the reappearance of the animal in a man whom he loved, aroused in Niels strange enthusiasms: as if he could have got up and howled and whistled, vying with the wind â¦
Thus half the night would pass. And perhaps the wind would cease; and morning dawned bright and clear, with the temperature down to its lowest levels â¦
Then Niels would set out with a load of wheat, or perhaps of barley or hay â¦
T
HAT WINTER
Niels became
naturalised
â¦
And soon after, when he heard that Bobby had left Nelson's because he wanted to earn real wages, he went and saw him, in the
livery
stable
of Minor, and proposed to him to come to his, Niels', place, at regular wages, the year around â¦
And Bobby came â¦
Thirty-four acres under crop â¦
Spring again. Breaking and seeding â¦
Niels proved up.
Sigurdsen was unable to do his work: Niels and Bobby did it for him.
More changes: an American moved into the district, having bought Kelm's farm. Kelm received nine thousand dollars in cash. He bought a half section of Hudson's Bay land, just across the creek, north of the bridge â¦
There was much discussion about this between Niels and Ellen. They would not sell. They were on their land because they loved it: to them it was home.
Yet, since Niels had proved up, there was no obstacle any longer ⦠Why did he wait? â¦
There had re-entered into their relationship something of the distancing effect of the first few years ⦠Niels began almost to dread the coming of the decisive moment â¦
There was some unsounded depth in him or the girl â¦
Something dreadful was coming, coming â¦
ELLEN
A chance happening disturbed Niels still more profoundly.
He had gone to town, driving his Percheron team. The mare was in foal. Last year's filly still ran with her. So he stayed overnight. The next day was hot; he made up his mind to attend to some business he had long postponed and to wait for the evening coolness before he started out for home â¦
Some time before dinner the train from the south was due. To put in time, he went to the station.
As is usual in small towns, half the population of the place crowded on to the platform as if in greeting or reception of the arrivals. A fewâelderly or middle-aged men in shirtsleevesâwere there on business; lessâladies, theseâto receive visitors or members of their households; mostâyoung boys and girls in “citified” clothesâbecause the arrival of the train furnished a pretext for joining a crowd or for meeting those of the opposite sex.
To Niels it always seemed that for town-people the most important problem was what to do with their time.
Niels stood silent and alone, frowning, as the train, this “link with a wider world,” lumbered to a stop with screeching brakes and hissing steamvalves. He stood opposite the coupling of two cars. With absent-minded curiosity he scanned the passengers as they alighted.
The first to appear was a bulky, powerful manâfrom the studied and conscious “magnetism” of his bearing a travelling salesman. Next came two Slavic-looking men, each carrying on his back a
gunny-sack
full of tools; self-effacing men who slipped through the crowd as if anxious to hide. Then, a girl who was at once taken to the ample bosom of a lady and kissed. Fourthly, another
young man
, in glaringly polished, pointed shoes, grey-checked trousers, short enough to reveal a fascinating piece of blue silk socks, a loud, striped shirt with flowing necktie, and a tight-fitting coat of the same grey check as his trousers: his lineâ“ladies' ready-to-wear”âwritten all over him â¦
Last, after a short wait, there came
a lady dressed in the height of fashion
, a long, narrow skirt enforcing a short, tripping step; a mannish summer coat of “
tango” colour;
and a wide lace hatâ
bergère style
âunder which a peculiarly engaging, smiling, and dimpled face looked out as if it were used to the attention she attracted.
Niels stared; and then he froze into a statue of almost indignant aloofness: that lady was Mrs. Vogel.
She, too, stared at him as she alighted.
And then, as she came straight up to him, her face broke into that smile which had once thrilled him.
“Why,” she said as she held out her hand, “this is the nicest of all surprises. Coming back as I do, almost a stranger in these parts, to be greeted by the face of a friend!”
Niels was at a loss what to say. The consciousness of old thoughts, dreams, and thrills sent a flush into his face. Awkwardly he doffed his cap when he accepted her hand which was encased in a grey suède glove. But Mrs. Vogel relieved him of the necessity of speaking.
“I'm on my way to the place in the bush,” she said; and the old expression of feminine helplessness came over her. She had looked tall and commanding on the steps of the car; now she seemed to dwindle till she was no more than a bit of humanity which needed protection. “I am selling the place and have to attend to all kinds of things. I am quite at a loss, not being a business woman. I was going to hire a livery rig. But perhaps I could get a ride with you?”
“I can give you the ride,” Niels said; “but I'm not going out till late. My Percherons must not sweat ⦔
Niels was aware that they formed the centre of a watching group. Mrs. Vogel's appearance had become the object of the local young ladies' absorbed attention; he himself was being scanned by the travelling salesmen â¦
A commotion arose. The conductor's “All-aboard” rang out; and with a jerk and a great puffing of steam the train began to glide out to the north.
“That would suit me just right,” Mrs. Vogel said. “I shall have to see Mr. Thorpe, the lawyer; and I shall have to change before we start. I am just in time for dinner at the hotel, I believe.”
S
HORTLY AFTER
, they sat in the dining room of the hotel.
When the rouged and powdered waitress came, Niels gave his order in a curt, gruff tone which was almost insulting.
Mrs. Vogel smiled; she seemed to be making fun of him: her voice, in addressing the waitress, was so pointedly sweet and measured.
“How strange,” Mrs. Vogel said after a while, “that you should be the first man I meet. Of all men you. Do you know, Niels, how often I have thought of you during these years in the city?”
Niels felt as he had felt years ago, at Nelson's wedding, in the house that was falling to ruins in the bush: Lund's house, ages ago ⦠He almost trembled when she used his first name.
Mrs. Vogel inquired after Mrs. Lund, after others â¦
“I still have that pony and buggy,” she said. “I hope Bert Rowdle is going to buy them ⦔
“Is he the one who is taking your place?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Bert Rowdle has been farming his brother's and my places together. His brother left a few years ago, playing hide-and-seek with his creditors, I believe. He is coming back. So Bert wants to buy ⦠And you are on the old place still?”
“Yes.”
“Doing well?”
“Not too badly. I have proved up.”
“You have? That's splendid.” It sounded like mockery. “Too bad you should still be unmarried ⦔
Niels kept silent. At last, by chance, he looked up.
Her eyes were resting on his, not mockingly now, but with a serious, glowing interest that seemed to deprive him of his speech. For the first time he noticed her hair:
it was parted in the centre, rolling out in big puffs to both sides, and twisted into curly roll after roll behind
.
Strange that it should never have struck him before that it was coppery-red â¦
Her complexion was still that almost transparent white; her lips, full and red; her cheeks, covered with a roseate bloom. A faint, heady perfume exhaled from her â¦
When this scrutiny became embarrassing, Niels tried to recall what she had said. “How do you know?” he asked.
“I can tell.” She smiled again.
And in sudden exasperation he said, “How?”
For a moment she looked at him in silence. Then she said very slowly, “You are a conqueror, Niels; but you do not know it. With women you are a child. A woman wants to be taken, not adored. But if you are ever to marry, the woman will have to take you ⦔