Settlers of the Marsh (13 page)

Niels reddened and frowned.

“Well,” said Mrs. Vogel when the meal was finished, “when do you go?”

“I'll come for you at six,” he said. “I'll put plenty of hay in the box.” And it struck him as absurd to offer this lady of the city a place in the hay.

But she nodded. “So long then.”

N
IELS HAD REALLY NOTHING
to do. But he strolled over to the bank to inquire about his balance which he knew as well as the banker.

The manager, a slim and exceedingly polite young man by name of Regan, asked him into his private office when he saw him.

“How's the farm?” he enquired. “You're in a good location there, Mr. Lindstedt. They've never had a failure yet in that district … And it seems you have the right idea; always keeping a comfortable balance on the right side of the ledger … However, I have been wanting to say this to you. Should you at any time wish to do something for which your cash resources are insufficient, come in and talk it over with us. The chances are that we should be glad to back you.”

“I believe in going without when I cannot pay cash.”

“A good principle, very good,” Mr. Regan said. “However, if we had no credit, there would be few
binders
or sewing machines on our farms …”

“I have my
binder
,” Niels objected.

“No doubt. In fact, I know. You might want a tractor one day …”

“Not till I can grow gasoline on my fields … I am raising colts …”

“Good stock, too. They'll make money for you. Well,” and the banker rose, chiefly in order to uphold the fiction that he was a very busy man … “should the occasion arise … Good-day, Mr. Lindstedt …”

N
IELS WENT
to the stable to feed his horses.

Then he left town, following the road to the east, along the Muddy River, walking.

A feeling of general dissatisfaction possessed him. This was the first time he had spent more than a few hours in town. He had often had the same feeling before.

On his land he was master; he knew just how to act. Here in town, people did with him as they pleased. Store-keepers tried to sell him what he did not want; at the hotel they fed him with things he did not like. The banker with whom he had sought no interview dismissed him at his own imperious pleasure …

And the attitude of superiority everybody assumed … They were quicker at repartee—silly, stupid repartee: and they were quick at it because they did not do much else but practise it …

Women want to be taken, not adored …

Mrs. Vogel perhaps, had he wanted her, might be taken … Had he wanted her … But he had wanted her!

Yet, she had been in the city: and he had not even known it! She had simply disappeared from his horizon.

Would such a thing have been possible with Ellen? It would not …

He was impatient to get back to the farm … Yet he waited where he had crouched down on the bank of the little river …

I
N FRONT OF
the hotel he sat in his wagon for half an hour before Mrs. Vogel appeared.

“Why, Niels,” she exclaimed, “what a team! … I'll be out in a minute.”

Shortly after, she appeared again. She wore a plain skirt and a waist, carrying her coat over her arm.

When Niels reached for her suitcase, he noticed that several faces had crowded together behind the glass of the door to the lobby. She climbed over the wheel to the seat by his side.

He had never been quite so close to her before; he had never, since he had been a man, been so close to any woman on earth. And this was an artful woman. She enveloped him in a cloud of delicate scents; she smiled at him from her black, beady eyes when the horses bent into their collars and stretched the traces.

They left the town.

He felt as if he were thrown back into chaos …

He had thought that he had fought all this down years ago. His conquest had been a specious one. He had conquered by the aid of a fickle ally; circumstance … Something was still stirred in him by this woman, something low, disgraceful …

In spite of his twenty-nine years he was not experienced enough to know that this something would have been stirred in him by any woman … And this was an artful woman: artful enough not to speak …

T
HE SUN HAD SET
. They passed the point where the trail branched off to the east, angling over the sand-flats. This was wild land, overgrown with low brush which was washed by the almost palpable bluish light of the high half moon. Every now and then a patch of silvery-grey
wolf-willow
glistened softly in the dark-green cushions of
symphoricarpus
.

Niels slipped off the wagon. “I'll walk for a while,” he said.

And he did so, the filly that followed her mother whisked her furry tail and shot ahead.

He took his supper out and munched away while he walked, the lines idly slung over his shoulders.

Soberly, now, the filly trotted ahead of him.

Hours went by … At last Niels spoke.

“I am going to stop,” he said. “I want to feed. I suppose you had better lie down;”—vaguely addressing the woman on the seat.

She nodded, almost overcome with sleep.

He pulled out on the side of the trail, in the lee of a
copse
of willows …

Slowly he stripped the harness off his horses, tied their halter-shanks to the wheels, poured oats on a piece of canvas, and spread the hay.

The woman climbed into the box of the wagon. She smiled and nearly stumbled with sleepiness.

“Won't you lie down yourself?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. “It isn't worth while …”

She smiled up at him, half asleep already, as he stood between the horses by the wagonbox; and just as she was on the point of closing her eyes, she reached languidly up with one hand, pushed his cap off, and rumpled his hair.

It was as if a stream of liquid fire had run through his veins. Completely bewildered he stepped back …

G
REY DAWN CREPT
over the eastern world …

Niels who had lain down after all, on the ground, got up and stretched. Then he yawned and reached for the harness which was hanging over the tongue of the wagon.

He glanced at the woman. She was sound asleep. Somehow her artificiality was half stripped away; she looked like a relic of ancient temptations …

A few minutes later the wagon was jolting along; the filly nickered, prancing about on her stilt-like, heavy-jointed legs …

In front of him, by-and-by, rose the sun, lifting himself out of glowing vapours. All about stretched the sandy margin of the Marsh, level as a prairie field, for the hollows were filled with snow-white mists. It was chilly.

Thus Niels was nearing his homestead with unexpected freight …

The woman behind him stirred, awoke, sat up. Niels did not turn. Several minutes passed.

Then her voice, shot with mocking notes, “Don't look back now. I am going to fix myself up a little.” But it sounded more like a summons to look than like anything else.

Niels chose to disobey the implication rather than the explicit words …

Higher and higher rose the bluff in front. The woman claimed his help in climbing forward to the seat.

“I'm going to change horses,” Niels said. “I can trot the Clydes …”

They reached his gate; the view on the yard widened out. In front of the stable Bobby was harnessing the other team. Beyond, in the horse-lot, the older filly set up a piercing call …

No sooner did Bobby see his employer than he came running to open the gate. At sight of Mrs. Vogel he stared. Then, with his high-pitched, boyish voice, he said “Hello!”

“Hello, Bobby,” Mrs. Vogel answered. “My, but you've grown!”

“What were you going to do?” Niels asked.

“
Haul hay for the loft.”

“No, wait. I want the Clydes. Turn Jock and Nellie out. I'm taking Mrs. Vogel to her place.”

In a few minutes the change of horses was completed.

Mrs. Vogel sat on her seat and looked about, half mockingly, half in admiration.

Niels did not ask her to enter the house. He climbed back to his seat, turned, and drove off the yard. To the south, before they reached the gate, a little vista opened on to a newly built shack.

“What is that?” Mrs. Vogel asked.

“I'm going to take Sigurdsen over,” Niels answered. “We've built that shack for him.”

“You've surely made progress,” the woman said.

Silence again …

I
N A LITTLE LESS
than an hour, following the winding bush trails, they emerged on a clearing. There were two groups of buildings: the near ones those of a pioneer homestead, log-cabin, stable, shed; the far ones a little cottage, frame-built, painted white, with a diminutive stable behind.

“This is Bert's place,” Mrs. Vogel said. “We'll stop here, please. In the cottage I used to live before I moved altogether into the city.”

Niels wondered why a strong man like Rowdle did not homestead rather than buy.

“Bert is lazy,” Mrs. Vogel explained. “He's a bachelor. There were thirty acres broken on this place. He'll never break any more … No, don't drive in. Just go to the house and call Bert, please.”

Niels noticed a pig coming out through the tattered screen-door of the house, grunting. In the one-roomed cabin chickens were picking up crumbs; a second pig was contentedly lying behind a dirty couch. On a sheet-less bed, covered with grey blankets that lay in a heap, there reposed the enormous girth of the man. He was just opening his eyes and jumped up.

“Hello, Lindstedt,” he said, fumbling under the bed for his shoes. “How are you?”

“I brought Mrs. Vogel over. She's waiting outside.”

“The deuce she is,” Rowdle grumbled. “Don't let her in. Tell her to wait till I get my pants on.”

Niels returned to the gate and reported.

Mrs. Vogel alighted. “Won't you wait for breakfast?” she asked, smiling enigmatically.

“Seems to me,” Niels said, “I should have offered you breakfast at my place. I didn't know what this was like.”

“No,” Mrs. Vogel smiled. “Since you never came three years ago … However, it's only a hundred yards to my cottage.”

“I am anxious to get back to work.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Vogel, “don't worry about me. Thanks for the ride. I have enjoyed it.” And she held out her hand.

August came; and harvest drew near.

Sigurdsen had moved into the shack on Niels' farm. Niels had bought his stock …

Niels was working, brushing more land …

Yes, there could be no doubt. His farm was a success. In a material sense he was prosperous beyond his boldest expectations … He had made his land; it was his … If only … But that, too, had to come to a decision. It had to be decided at once; else there would be chaos …

On Sunday afternoon he went to see Ellen.

E
LLEN WAS WAITING
for him. She stood at the gate, looking down the winding trail to the south.

Was there something in his face which betrayed him?

Somehow she was different. In her face, too, there was a new expression: something of expectancy, emotion, inner struggle which had disturbed her usual balance.

He was aware of it as soon as he looked into her eye.

He knew more clearly, more convincingly that the moment was at hand. Whether he brought it or not, it was there. In the smile with which she greeted him there was something hunted … For the first time in their intercourse this girl awakened in him the protective instincts. More than ever before she was the only woman in the world for him …

In silence they went to the accustomed place, that natural bower in the fringe of the bush …

As they crossed the yard, imponderable things, incomprehensible waves of feeling passed to and fro between them: things too delicate for words; things somehow full of pain and anxious, disquieting anticipation: like silent discharges between summer clouds that distantly wink at each other in lightning.

The air, too, was charged; its sultriness foreboded a storm. Yet, there was not a cloud in the upper reaches of the atmosphere; only at the horizon there lay, in the far north-west, a white bank which, above the dark cliff of forest, showed a rounded, convoluted outline, its edge blushing with a golden iridescence.

The slightest breeze ambled into the clearing from the east, scarcely perceptible, yet refreshing where it could be felt.

Between the two, as the silence lengthened—between man and woman, boy and girl—the consciousness arose that the other knew of the decision which was at hand: it was almost oppressive. Some step was to be taken, had to be taken at last: it was a tragic necessity no longer to be evaded …

Yet neither spoke; each waited for the other. They stood by the chairs which the girl had provided.

Furtive glances stole across, to be averted forthwith. Colour came and went in two faces, imperceptible almost, yet divined.

Then the girl spoke. Her words came hurriedly, precipitately, as if to forestall the arrival of the moment; as if to postpone what was unavoidably coming; as if to plead for a term of grace.

“Shall we sit here?” she said. “Let us have a walk rather, shall we?”

Niels nodded. The appeal in her voice could not be denied.

“Sometimes,” the girl went on, still hurriedly, “the bush frightens me. I cannot find the horizon. I want to see wide, open, level spaces. Let's go to the slough.”

Again Niels nodded. He did not trust himself to speak. There was no barrier between them: they looked at each other, as it were, stripped of all conventions, all disguises …

The moment was coming. It had prepared itself. It was rushing along the lane of time where neither he nor she could escape it. Yes, it was already here. It stood in front of them; and its face was not smiling; it was grimly tragical …