"Your father will be pleased to see you, won't he?"
"I don't think! Of course I was a damned fool ever to leave Winnipeg."
"I understand you didn't until you had to."
"Say," said Hornby, pausing in his walk, "I want to tell you: your brother behaved like a perfect brick. I sent him your letter and told him I was up against it--d'you know I hadn't a bob? I was jolly glad to earn half a dollar digging a pit in a man's garden. Bit thick, you know!"
"I can see you," laughed Nora.
"Your brother sent me the fare to come on here and told me I could do the chores. I didn't know what they were. I soon found it was doing all the jobs it wasn't anybody else's job to do. And they call it God's own country!"
"I think you're falling into the ways of the country very well, however!" retorted Nora as she struggled across to the table with the heavy ironing-board.
"Do you? What makes you think that?"
"You can stand there and smoke your pipe and watch me carry the ironing-board about."
"I beg your pardon. Did you want me to help you?"
"Never mind. It would remind me of home."
"I suppose I shall have to stick it out at least a year, unless I can humbug the mater into sending me enough money to get back home with."
"She won't send you a penny--if she's wise."
"Oh, come now! Wouldn't you chuck it if you could?"
"And acknowledge myself beaten," said Nora, with a flash of spirit. "You don't know," she went on after ironing busily a moment, "what I went through before I came here. I tried to get another position as lady's companion. I hung about the agents' offices. I answered advertisements. Two people offered to take me; one without any salary, the other at ten shillings a week and my lunch. I, if you please, was to find myself in board, lodging and clothes on that magnificent sum! That settled me. I wrote Eddie and said I was coming. When I'd paid my fare, I had eight pounds in the world--after ten years with Miss Wickham. When he met me at the station at Dyer----"
"Depot; you forget."
"My whole fortune consisted of seven dollars and thirty-five cents; I think it was thirty-five."
"What about that wood you're splitting, Reg?" said a voice from the doorway.
Eddie came in fumbling nervously in his pockets. He detested scenes and had some reason to think that he was having more than his share of them in the last few days.
"Has anyone seen my tobacco! Oh, here it is," he said, taking his pouch from his pocket. "Come, Reg, you'd better be getting on with it."
"Oh, Lord, is there no rest for the wicked?" exclaimed Hornby as he lounged lazily to the door.
"Don't hurry yourself, will you?"
"Brilliant sarcasm is just flying about this house to-day," was his parting shot as he banged the door behind him.
CHAPTER IX
Nora understood perfectly that her brother had been forced to take a stand as a result of this last quarrel with Gertie. Well, she was glad of it. Things certainly could not go on in this way forever. Of course he would have to make a show, at least, of taking his wife's part. But, equally of course, he would understand her position perfectly. However much his new life and his long absence from England might have changed him, at bottom their points of view were still the same. He and she, so to speak, spoke a common language; she and Gertie did not.
Gertie had probably been pouring out her accumulation of grievances to him for the last half hour. Now it was her turn. She would show that she was, as always, more than ready to meet Gertie half-way. It would be his affair to see that her advances were received in better part in future than they had been.
She went on busily with her ironing, waiting for him to begin. But Eddie seemed to experience a certain embarrassment in coming to the subject. While she took article after article from the clothes-basket at her side, he wandered about the room aimlessly, puffing at a pipe which seemed never to stay lighted.
[Illustration: MARRIED--THOUGH SECRETLY ENEMIES.]
"That's the toughest nut I've ever been set to crack," he said at length, pointing his pipestem after the vanished Hornby. "Why on earth did you give him a letter to me?"
"He asked me to. I couldn't very well say no."
"I can't make out what people are up to in the old country. They think that if a man is too big a rotter to do anything at all in England, they've only got to send him out here and he'll make a fortune."
"He may improve."
"I hope so. Look here, Nora, you've thoroughly upset Gertie."
"She's very easily upset, isn't she?"
"It's only since you came that things haven't gone right. We never used to have scenes."
"So you blame me. I came prepared to like her and help her. She met all my advances with suspicion."
"She thinks yon look down on her. You ought to remember that she never had your opportunities. She's earned her own living from the time she was thirteen. You can't expect in her the refinements of a woman who's led the protected life you have."
"Now, Eddie, I haven't said a word that could be turned into the least suggestion of disapproval of anything she did."
"My dear, your whole manner has expressed disapproval. You won't do things in the way we do them. After all, the way you lived in Tunbridge Wells isn't the only way people can live. Our ways suit us, and when you live amongst us you must adopt them."
"She's never given me a chance to learn them," said Nora obstinately. "She treated me with suspicion and enmity the very first day I came here. When she sneered at me because I talked of a station instead of a depot, of course I went on talking of a station. What do you think I'm made of? Because I prefer to drink water with my meals instead of your strong tea, she says I'm putting on airs."
Marsh made a pleading gesture.
"Why can't you humor her? You see, you've got to take the blame for all the English people who came here in the past and were lazy, worthless and supercilious. They called us Colonials and turned up their noses at us. What do you expect us to do?--say, 'Thank you very much, sir.' 'We know we're not worthy to black your boots.' 'Don't bother to work, it'll be a pleasure for us to give you money'? It's no good blinking the fact. There was a great prejudice against the English. But it's giving way now, and every sensible man and woman who comes out can do something to destroy it."
"All I can say," said Nora, going over to the stove to change her iron, "is if you're tired of having me here, I can go back to Winnipeg. I shan't have any difficulty in finding something to do."
"Good Lord, I don't want you to go. I like having you here. It's--it's company for Gertie. And jobs aren't so easy to find as you think, especially now the winter's coming on; everyone wants a job in the city."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to make the best of things and meet her half-way. You must make allowances for her even if you think her unreasonable. It's Gertie you've got to spend most of your time with."
He was so manifestly distressed and, as he hadn't been so hard on her as she had expected and in her own heart felt that she deserved, Nora softened at once.
"I'll have a try."
"That's a good girl. And I think you ought to apologize to her for what you said just now."
"I?" said Nora, aflame at once. "I've got nothing to apologize for. She drove me to distraction."
There was a moment's pause while Eddie softly damned the pipe he had forgotten to fill, for not keeping lighted.
"She says she won't speak to you again unless you beg her pardon."
"Really! Does she look upon that as a great hardship?"
"My dear! We're twelve miles from the nearest store. We're thrown upon each other for the entire winter. Last year there was a bad blizzard, and we didn't see a soul outside the farm for six weeks. Unless we learn to put up with one another's whims, life becomes a perfect hell."
Nora stopped her work and set down her iron.