Settlers of the Marsh (18 page)
T
WO, THREE HOURS LATER
, when he had walked the road for many miles, till his joints began to ache, he returned to the boarding house. He had no intention of going to bed. He wanted to sit down for a while and then to leave town, letting his business go â¦
He had done what he had never done before: he had touched a woman: the touch had set his blood aflame. He almost hated the woman for what she had done to him. He wanted oblivion: he wanted death-in-life; and she had kindled in him that which he had hardly known to exist: she had given a meaning and a direction to stirrings within him, to strange, incomprehensible impulses. His instinct urged him to flight: it was impossible that he should see her again. All this was dimly felt, not distinctly told off in thought.
In the lobby of the hotel there were still some loungers. One or two he knew: the doctor, a merchant. They would speak to him â¦
He stood undecided. Should he go to the stable instead? No; he had paid for his room; there he would be alone â¦
The loungers got up from their chairs. It was a minute or so till midnight ⦠At midnight the lights would be turned off; he would not be able to see the number of the door to his room â¦
He ran up the stairs; into the uncarpeted corridor where his steps resounded loudly.
He was too late; that very moment the lights went out. He was just aware, before he stood in utter darkness, that somewhere along the corridor a door had opened.
The very next moment he felt two warm, bare arms about his neck; and a warm, soft, fragrant body seemed to envelop his. A hand closed his mouth; he was drawn forward; he yielded â¦
I
T WAS LATE
on the evening of the third day, on Saturday night, that Niels returned to his farm. Bobby had already milked the cows and fed the horses. When he heard Niels calling at the gate, he ran to meet him.
“Hello,” he sang out, “I ⦔ And he went silent, for he saw the woman on the seat, by the side of his employer.
He swung the gate open and greeted her, smiling in his embarrassed way. “Hello, Mrs. Vogel.”
She laughed; and then she corrected him. “I am afraid you'll have to say Mrs. Lindstedt after this.”
Bobby's eyes widened till they stared.
Niels sat stiffly and looked straight ahead, without smiling. He was not a tall man; but his breadth of shoulder made him look almost colossal in the darkness, by the side of her.
“Well,” said the woman, laughing again, as the horses pulled, “why don't you say something? ⦠Congratulate me and ⦠him?”
But Bobby said nothing. He was very red as, at the stable, he bent over the traces to unhook them.
Niels sprang to the ground, went heavily to the other side of the wagon, and helped his wife to alight. Then he reached for the two suitcases and led the way to the house. The woman followed.
“So this is the famous White Range Line House?” she said as they entered.
And for the first time Niels spoke. “You will have to put up with things,” he said. “This is a bachelor's establishment. We shall get order into it shortly.” His speech was brief but not unkind.
In the north room a lamp was burning; its glass was smoky. The four chairs were plain, straight-backed kitchen chairs; it held two beds and a deal table. Overalls and other workingman's apparel were strewn on floor and furniture.
The woman looked about. “That is the kitchen?”
Niels went in, struck a match, and lighted a lamp.
The kitchen held a stove, two chairs, another deal table, and a small array of enamelled pots and dishes, most of them unwashed. A colander contained some eggs, a bag some potatoes, a large baking tin some soggy biscuits, a box by the stove some wood, and a pail on the bench by the door fresh water in which a dipper floated about â¦
She smiled at it all and nodded.
“How about Bobby?” she asked.
“I'll see,” Niels said and left her alone.
H
E WENT OUT
and stood a moment in the darkness, musing. Then he crossed the yard to the stable.
Bobby had watered the horses and was stripping the harness off their backs, by the light of a lantern. Jock, the Percheron gelding, nickered at sight of his master. Niels stepped in by his side and patted his breast. He seemed lost in thought â¦
Bobby poured oats for the Clydes. Niels took a fork to go for hay.
“How about the sloughs?” he asked of Bobby when they had finished. “Dry enough to plow?”
“I think so.”
“All right. By the way, you will have to move to the shack.”
“To-night?”
“Just as well. And you'll have to help me in the house for an hour or so. You'll get your meals there, of course ⦠I'll raise you five dollars ⦔
“Well,” Bobby said ⦠“Thanks.”
In the house, they carried one of the beds upstairs; another bed which was stored there they put together. The things that littered rooms and landing they removed into the west room which Niels locked.
When they had finished, the east room bore some resemblance to a civilised bed-room though it still looked bare. His own bed Niels had placed on the landing, in front of the door which was locked.
They were looking at their work and finding it good when the woman's voice rang out, “Will you men be ready for supper in about fifteen minutes?”
“I think so,” Niels replied.
“I've had my supper,” Bobby called.
“Well, have another,” the voice said, laughing.
They went down and loaded up with Bobby's things. “You'll have to use a lantern,” Niels said, “till there's time to send to town for a lamp. I forgot.”
“That's all right.” And Bobby shouldered his mattress.
A
T SUPPER
, which had been set on the oil-cloth-covered table in the large, bare north room, Bobby kept casting furtive glances at the woman presiding.
She had changed into
a silky sort of dressing gown
the like of which he had never seen in his life. When she reached for anything on the table, she gathered the wide, flowing sleeve with the other hand to prevent its brushing over the dishes. The lapping panel of the gown that covered her breast fell back as she did so and revealed a white, round shoulder with a pink silk ribbon over it and the lace-trimmed edge of some
undergarment
below her throat. When she saw Bobby's stare, she smiled and folded the panel back into place.
Bobby looked at Niels who sat there sternly, looking straight ahead and chewing absentmindedly a freshly baked biscuit. When Bobby pushed his chair back and rose, his eye fell on a suitcase standing open by the wallâthe contents of which, the appurtenances of modern feminity, made him blush to the roots of his hair.
Awkwardly he stumbled out and mumbled, “Good-night.”
O
N SUNDAY
many things were done in the house, Bobby being banished to stable and shack.
Niels looked forbidding; Mrs. Lindstedt went about the rooms, busy with curtains and things.
Bobby felt lost and went at last to call on the new neighbours to the south â¦
In the afternoon, Niels strolled all over his farm; his wife had lain down for a nap.
When Bobby returned, late at night, after supper, Niels gave him his directions for the morning. He did so in a softer, almost indulgent voice; with few words, but words which sounded as if he wished to conciliate an ally in a struggle to come â¦
M
ONDAY MORNING
Bobby walked behind the drag-harrow; Niels rode the seeder.
They had worked for some hours when along the edge of the field a female figure appeared, dressed in a light, washable frock, with a “tango”
coat
over her shoulders, her chestnut-red hair flaming in the morning sun. Her eyes smiled at Bobby; and when Niels came by, she picked her way over the soft, brown seed-bed.
He stopped and looked at her.
“Well,” she asked, her whole face dimpling up, “how does it feel?” And she went around the machine, to his side, resting her elbows on the seedbox, leaning against him.
For a moment silence. Then, as with an effort, “How does what feel?”
“Everything ⦠Being married ⦔
He looked ahead and did not reply.
She cast a quick glance at Bobby; and, since his back was still turned, she reached up with her hand, rumpled Niels' hair, raised herself on her toes, kissed his ear, and whispered, “Oh, I love you; you're so big and strong! How I love you! I love you so much it hurts!”
An embarrassed look flitted over his face. “Don't ⦠the boy ⦔
“Oh,” she cried, “go, you big bear!” She pushed his shoulder and laughingly picked her way to the edge of the field and sat down on a boulder.
Never once did Niels look at her; but she followed him with her eyes. When Bobby passed her, she smiled.
Niels was a prey to a whirl of thoughts and feelings ⦠Already his marriage seemed to him almost an indecency â¦
He looked back at the thing that had happened, as if it had happened to another man.
Many points he did not understand ⦠The astonished look of the woman, for instance, when, the morning after the night, he had asked her about the arrangements for their marriage. At first she had laughed. “Marry?” she had asked with widening eyes. As if there could be any question about the marriage! And, after some time, as if a readjustment of a preconceived idea had taken place, she, too, had treated that point as settled, as a matter of course. Then she had suddenly fallen about his neck, half laughing, half crying. “Oh,” she had whispered, “how I have wanted this! I have wanted it for years; for seven years, I believe. Ever since I first met you. But Niels, listen! Promise me that you will never leave me. Never, never! Not for a single day! It would be terrible if you did, Niels. Terrible for you and me. Promise, Niels.”
He had not understood then; he did not understand now.
She loved him; had loved him for seven years: so what was there to fear? Everything was plain and simple. He, it is true, could no longer respond with any great passion. But he, too, had wanted her once, would want her again. He would do his duty â¦
The other woman had sent him away ⦠The other woman? ⦠The world went black before his eyes â¦
He put the thought aside with an effort. His look assumed a steely expression; his mouth was set in rigid lines. He looked old.
“Come on, there, Nellie,” he shouted and swung his whip, the first time he had ever done so, over the Percherons. Jock jumped as he heard its swish â¦
F
ROM THE NEIGHBOURS
where Bobby had carried the news, it had flown abroad. The settlement was astir with it: Lindstedt, the powerful Swede, had married the Vogel woman!
“Well, I'll be jiggered!” Mrs. Lund had exclaimed at Odensee.
“Yooh-hooh!” Kelm had yodled across the creek.
The timid young settlers south-east of Niels' had looked at each other, almost frightened â¦
Not a person called at the White Range Line House ⦠Nor did the pair call on any one â¦
Just now, of course, everybody was busy seeding; but even after seeding was over â¦
Niels broadcasted a mixture of grasses in his slough. Perhaps, if he seeded grass, he could get along without additional hay⦠The other woman held the permits â¦
B
UT THE MEETING
had to come, of course.
One evening, still in the early summer, he went to see Kelm on business; and as he drove over the bridge, into the road-chasm, where the bush still stood in its primeval thickness, he saw her team coming, water-barrels in the wagon-box â¦
His heart stood still. There was no way of turning. He had to go to the side to give her the road. His horses stopped, and he sat, his head bowed low.
Slowly her team approached, came up, and stood ⦠For a moment silence.
Then her voice, a mere whisper, full of anguish, “Niels, how could you! ⦔
Without answering he drove past â¦
S
UMMER WENT ON
its way.
More and more Niels realised that the woman who had become his wife was a stranger to him â¦
It had not taken above three days before he knew that, if ever there had been in him the true fire that welds two lives together, it had died down. He had made an effort to conquer something like aversion ⦠It was his duty to make the best of a bad bargain â¦
Distasteful though they were, he satisfied her strange, ardent, erratic desires. Often she awakened him in the middle of the night, in the early morning hours, just before daylight; often she robbed him of his sleep in the evening, keeping him up till midnight and later. She herself slept much in daytime. He bore up under the additional fatigue â¦
Whenever she came, she overwhelmed him with caresses and protestations of love which were strangely in contrast to her usual, almost ironical coolness.
She read much, restricting her work in the house to the least that would do. Yet, during the early part of the summer, meals were always prepared, the house in order when he came home at the regular hours.
Once a week Mrs. Shultze came over, the frail little wife of the German neighbour, to do the heavy washing, the scrubbing, the baking, the churning ⦠as Niels' mother had done ⦠Her own wearing apparel Mrs. Lindstedt washed by hand, upstairs, in her basin â¦
Twice, when Niels had entered the house at an unusual hour, once at eleven, once at four o'clock, he had found it exactly as he had left it, with the breakfast and dinner dishes still on the table, the beds unmade: she did her work the last minute ⦠Niels tried not to see it.
The interior of the house was much changed.
Mrs. Lindstedt had had a flat in the city and owned furniture of her own. She had had it shipped out to Minor; and Niels had made two trips with the hay-rack to haul it from there.
It had converted her bed-room into something which he did not understand: upholstered chairs, rugs, heavy curtains, and a monstrously wide, luxurious bed with box mattress and satin covers; a mahogany dressing table covered with brushes, combs, flasks, jars, and provided with three large mirrors two of which were hinged to the central one; a
chiffonier
filled with a multitudinous arrangement of incomprehensible, silky and fluffy garments, so light and thin that you could crush them in the hollow of your hand; a set of sectional bookcases filled with many volumes; a couch upholstered in large-flowered damask; cushions without number; and above all mirrors, mirrors. The whole room was pervaded with sweetish scents.