By Right of Purchase

CHAPTER XX

AN UNDERSTANDING

A deep stillness hung over the prairie, and the stars were high and dim, while the waggon jolted on. Though the team moved slowly, Leland had apparently no wish to hurry them. A clean, aromatic smell of wild peppermint floated about the pair on the driving-seat as the faint dew damped the load behind them. They sat in a hollow of the fragrant grass, and the softness and the warmth of it were pleasant, for, as sometimes happens at that season, the night was almost chill. The other teams had vanished, and they rode on over the vast shadowy levels alone. Every rattle of the harness, every creak of jarring wheels, rang through the silence with a startling distinctness.

Some vague influence in it all reacted upon the girl, and she sat very still, pressed close against Leland's shoulder, content to be there, and almost afraid to speak lest what she should say might rudely break the charm. She knew now what she felt for the man at her side, and remembered what Eveline Annersly had said. It was fit that she should cleave to him, since they were one. Leland finally spoke:

"Urmston did not come back with you."

"No," said Carrie, realising that the crisis was at hand, and yet almost afraid to precipitate it. "He rode in to the railroad."

Leland called to the horses before he spoke again.

"Carrie," he said slowly, "any of your friends are welcome at Prospect, and especially Mrs. Annersly; but I have felt for some little while now that I must ask you why that man is staying here so long."

The girl summoned her self-control with an effort, for she felt she must play the part she had decided on; but she felt her heart beat as she moved a little so that she could look up at her companion. He had moved, too, and though his face showed but vaguely, she could feel that his eyes were fixed upon her.

"The night you would not have Mrs. Heaton here, you said something that made me very angry, though from your point of view you were right," she said. "I think we must understand each other once for all. Do you consider it necessary to remind me of the same thing now?"

"No," said Leland, still quietly, though there was a suggestion of tension in his voice. "I was ashamed of it afterwards; I lost my temper. I know you have too much pride and honesty not to keep your bargain to the letter, and I am not in the least jealous of Urmston. You have my ring upon your hand. How could I be? Still, one has now and then to talk plainly. Urmston is a man who might take much for granted and presume. Your good name is precious to me."

"Thank you for that. You do not know that there was a time when, if circumstances had been propitious, I would have married Reggie Urmston?"

Leland appeared to smile. "I think I knew that, too."

"And you said nothing when he came here!"

"My dear," said Leland gravely, "I had by that time perfect confidence in you. The clean pride that held you away from me would keep you safe in spite of anything that such a man might do or say."

"Well," said Carrie, with a calm dignity, "he will never come back again. I have sent him away."

She felt the man start, and saw his hands tighten on the reins.

"Carrie," he said, "you will tell me more if you wish; if not, it doesn't matter. There is another thing I want to say. I have often been sorry for you, but I felt that you would not find it quite so hard some day. That is why I waited – I think very patiently – though it was a little hard on me, too. I thought I knew what you must feel – indeed, you showed it to me – and I was horribly afraid that, if I was too hasty, I might lose you."

"And that would have troubled you?"

Leland turned again, and his voice was a trifle hoarse. "My dear, I do not understand these things. I have been too busy to worry about my feelings, but I know that, while I only admired you at Barrock-holme, something else that was different soon took hold of me, and kept on growing stronger the more I saw of you. I think it first gripped me hard the night you told me what you thought of me – though why then I don't know. Now I am sure, at least, that it will never let me go."

Then, his self-restraint failing him, he slipped an arm about her and held her tightly to him. "Carrie," he said harshly, "it is getting too hard for me. Do you know that now and then something almost drives me into taking you into my arms and crushing you into submission? I could do it now – the touch of you almost maddens me. This can't go on. I have felt lately that you were growing kinder and shrank from me less. After all, I am a man and nothing more. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?"

Carrie laughed softly, with a little catch of her breath. "Bend your head a little, Charley," she said, "I have something to tell you."

As he did her bidding, she, stretching up a soft, warm arm round his neck, drew his face down to hers. His hand closed convulsively on her waist.

"Charley," she said again, "it needn't go on any longer than you wish. I don't want it to. I only want you to love me now."

The man laughed almost fiercely in his exultation. For a space she lay crushed and breathless beneath his engirdling arm, with his kisses hot upon her lips. When at last his grasp relaxed, her head, with the big white hat all crushed and crumpled, was still upon his breast. Her cheeks were burning, and her blood ran riot, for she was one who did nothing by half, as she clung to him in an ecstasy of complete and irrevocable surrender. The man broke out into a flood of disjointed, half-coherent, unrestrained words.

"It was worth while waiting – even if I had waited years – though now and then you almost drove me mad," he said. "Your daintiness, your pride, the clean, hard grit that was in you, made me want to take you in my arms and break you and make you yield. Still, I knew, somehow, that was not the way with you, and I held myself in. It was hard – oh, it was hard. The beauty of you, your freshness, your beautiful little hands, even the coldness in your face, set me on fire at times. They were mine, you belonged to me, and yet I would claim nothing that went with your dislike. I wanted you to give them all to me."

Carrie laughed, though there was a little break in her voice. "They are yours, and so am I. Only you must think them precious – and never let me go."

Then she stretched her arm up and slipped it round his neck again. "Charley, at the very first, what was it made you want to marry me?"

"Well," said Leland, with an air of reflection, "haven't you hair as softly dusky as the sky up there, and eyes so deep and clear that one can see the wholesome thoughts down in the depths of them? Haven't you hands and arms that look like alabaster, until one feels the gracious warmth beneath?"

"And a vixenish temper! If I ever show it to you, you must shake me, and shake me hard. There was a time when you did it, and left a blue mark on my shoulder; but I deserved it, and now I wouldn't mind. I would sooner have you shake me every day than never think of me. Still, you haven't told me what I asked you yet."

Leland stooped and kissed the shoulder. "When a man looks at you, he can see a hundred reasons for wanting you, and every one sufficient."

"Still, that was not all. If you do not tell me, I shall ask Aunt Eveline, and I think she knows. Don't you see that we must understand everything to-night?"

"Then it seemed to me it would be a horrible thing to marry you to Aylmer."

Carrie drew her breath in. "Oh," she said, "I always fancied it was that, and I could love you if it was only for saving me from him." Then she broke out into a little soft laugh. "Charley, it was the wrong shoulder you kissed."

"That is very easily set right," and the man bent down again. As he looked up, he called sharply to the horses, and shook the reins.

"I wonder how long we have been waiting here?" he said. "I suppose you haven't noticed that the team has stopped?"

They rode on again, in silence seldom broken, into a land of beatific visions. With a little wistful sense of regret, they saw Prospect at last rise black and shadowy against the big birch bluff. The teamsters, however, had not gone to sleep yet, and Leland, leaving the waggon to one of them, walked silently with Carrie towards the house. He stooped and kissed her as they crossed the threshold.

"From now on, it is home," he said. "I only want to please you, and you must tell me when I fail."

They went in together, and he lighted the big lamp. "You had supper with Mrs. Custer, but that is quite a while ago, and there should be a little fire yet in the cook-shed stove," he said. "Is there anything I can make you?"

Carrie laughed as she took off the big crumpled hat and flung it on the table.

"No," she said, "you will sit still while I see what can be found. It will be my part to cook and bake and wait on you. I almost think, if it were necessary, I could drive a team, too."

They decided it by going into the cook-shed together, and, late as it was, Carrie wasted a good deal of flour attempting to make flap-jacks under her husband's direction, achieving a general disorder that Mrs. Nesbit surveyed with astonishment next morning. But the good soul's astonishment grew when she came upon Carrie setting the table in the big room, at least half an hour before Leland came in for his early breakfast.

"I guess you're not going to want me much longer, and it's hardly likely that Charley Leland will, either," she said.

Carrie's face flushed. "Oh, yes," she said, "you must stay here and teach me everything that a farmer's wife ought to know. I am afraid you will be a long while doing it."

The hard-featured woman smiled at her in a very kindly fashion.

"You're going to find it all worth while," she said.

Carrie set about it that morning, and her sympathy with Mrs. Custer grew stronger with every hour she spent in Mrs. Nesbit's company, for it was evident that there was a great deal a woman could do at Prospect, too. Indeed, although she had already taken a spasmodic interest in the work, what she was taught before evening left her more than a little confused and by no means pleased with herself. It was disconcerting to be brought suddenly face to face with the realities of life and the conviction that things did not run smoothly of themselves. She realised, for the first time, almost with dismay, that, by coldly standing aside while the others toiled, she had made her husband's burden heavier than it need have been. She had, perhaps not altogether unnaturally, fallen into the habit of assuming that it was only fit that all she desired should be obtained for her, and had never inquired about the effort it entailed; but, as this point of view did not seem quite warranted now, she resolved that the future should be different. Finally realising her obligations, she did not shrink from the responsibility.

Eveline Annersly, coming home that evening, found her sitting, deep in thought, by the window of her room, a new softness in her eyes. She drew up a chair close by, and sat looking at her in a shrewd way that the girl appeared to find disconcerting.

"Carrie," she said, "I wonder if you know that you look quite as well in that simple dress as you do in your usual evening one? Still, your hair is a little ruffled. Surely you haven't been rubbing it against somebody's shoulder?"

Carrie Leland blushed crimson, which was somewhat remarkable, as it was a thing she was by no means in the habit of doing.

"Well," she said with a little musical laugh, "there was no reason why I shouldn't. It was my husband's."

Then she rose impulsively, and, drawing up a footstool, sank down beside Eveline Annersly, and slipped an arm about her.

"I think you know," she said. "At least, you have done what you could to bring it about for ever so long. We are friends at last, Charley and I."

"That is pleasant to hear. Still, I'm not sure it would quite satisfy Charley. Haven't you gone any further?"

Carrie's face was hidden as she replied, in a voice that quavered a bit. "I think we are lovers, too," she murmured.

"Well," said her companion, "if he had known all I do, you might have been that some time ago. In fact, it would have pleased me if he had slapped you occasionally. If you had made him believe what you tried, it is very probable that you would never have forgiven yourself. But I think you ought to be more than lovers."

Feeling a tremor of emotion run through the girl, she stooped and kissed her half-hidden cheek. Carrie looked up.

"Charley is my husband – and all that is worth having to me," she said. "He is sure of it at last. I have told him so."

She sat silent for a minute, and then turned a little and took out a letter.

"It's from Jimmy," she said. "It was among Charley's papers, and he gave it to me when we came home."

"He wants something?" said Mrs. Annersly, drily.

"Yes," and Carrie's voice was quietly contemptuous. "Jimmy, it seems, is in difficulties again. If he hadn't been, he would not have written. Of course, it is only a loan."

"You have a banking account in Winnipeg."

"I have. I owe it to my husband's generosity, and I shall probably want it very soon. Do you suppose that, while Charley is crushed with anxiety and working from dawn to dusk, I would send Jimmy a penny?"

"Well," said Eveline Annersly, reflectively, "I really don't fancy it would be advisable, but this is rather a sudden change on your part. Not long ago you wouldn't let me say a word against anybody at Barrock-holme."

Carrie laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. "Everything has changed. All that is mine I want for Charley, and, while he needs it, there is nothing for anybody else."

She stopped for a moment. "Aunt Eveline, there are my mother's pearls and diamonds, which I think I should have had. I did not like to ask for them, but I always understood they were to come to me when I was married. I don't quite understand why my father never mentioned them."

Mrs. Annersly looked thoughtful. "I am under very much the same impression. In fact, I am almost sure they should have been handed to you. Still, what could you do with them here?"

"I may want them presently."

"In that case you had better write and ask for them very plainly."

Carrie rose, with a determined expression in her face. "Well, I must go down," she said. "Charley will be here in a few minutes. I see the teams coming back from the sloos."

Eveline Annersly sat thoughtfully still. The jewels in question were, she knew, of considerable value. For that very reason, she was far from sure that Carrie could ever have the good-will of anybody at Barrock-holme if she insisted on her rights of possession.

CHAPTER XXI

A WILLING SACRIFICE

Three weeks had slipped away since the evening Carrie Leland had asked about her mother's jewels, when she and Eveline Annersly once more referred to them as they sat in her room, a little before the supper hour. The window was wide open, and the blaze of sunlight that streamed in fell upon Carrie as she took up a letter from the little table before her.