The Black Creek Stopping-House, and Other Stories Part 4

When the ladies had gone that afternoon, and while Mrs. Corbett washed the white ironstone dishes, she was not nearly so composed and confident in mind as she pretended to be.

"Don't it beat the band how much they find out? I often wonder how things get to be known. I do wish she wouldn't give them the chance to talk, but she's not the one that will take tellin'--too much like her father for that--and still I kind o' like her for her s.p.u.n.ky ways.

Rance is a divil, but she don't know that. It is pretty hard to tell what ought to be done. This is surely work for the Almighty, and not for sinful human beings!"

That night Mrs. Corbett took her pen in hand. Mrs. Corbett was more at home with the potato-masher or the rolling-pin, but when duty called her she followed, even though it involved the using of unfamiliar tools.

She wrote a lengthy letter to Mr. Robert Grant, care of The Imperial Lumber Company, Toronto, Ontario:

"Dear and respected sir," Mrs. Corbett wrote, "I take my pen in hand to write you a few things that maybe you don't know but ought to know, and to tell you your daughter is well, but homesick sometimes hoping that you are enjoying the same blessings as this leaves us at present. Your daughter is my neighbor and a blessed girl she is, and it is because I love her so well that I am trying to write to you now, not being handy at it, as you see; also my pen spits. As near as I can make out you and her's cut off the same cloth; both of you are touchy and quick, and, if things don't suit you, up and coming. But she's got a good heart in her as ever I see. One day she told me a lot about how good you were to her when her mother died, and about the prayer her mother used to tell her to say: 'Help papa and mamma and Evelyn to be chums.' When she came to that she broke right down and cried, and says she to me, 'I haven't either of them now!' If you'd a-seen her that day you'd have forgot everything only that she was your girl. Then she sat down and wrote you a long letter, but when she got done didn't she tear it up, because she said you told her you wouldn't read her letters. I saved a bit of the letter for you to see, and here it is. We don't any of us see what made you so mad at the man she got--he's a good fellow, and puts up with all her high temper. She's terrible like yourself, excuse me for saying so and meaning no harm. If she'd married some young scamp that was soaked in whiskey and cigarettes you'd a-had something to kick about. I don't see what you find in him to fault. Maybe you'll be for telling me to mind my own business, but I am not used to doing that, for I like to take a hand any place I see I can do any good, and if I was leaving my girl fretting and lonely all on account of my dirty temper, both in me and in her, though for that she shouldn't be blamed, I'd be glad for someone to tell me. If you should want to send her a Christmas present, and she says you never forgot her yet, come yourself. It's you she's fretting for. You can guess it's lonely for her here when I tell you she and me's the only women in this neighborhood, and I keep a stopping-house, and am too busy feeding hungry men to be company for anyone.

"Hoping these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessings,

"Yours respectively,

"MAGGIE CORBETT."

The writing of the letter took Mrs. Corbett the greater part of the afternoon, but when it was done she felt a great weight had been lifted from her heart. She set about her preparations for the evening meal with more than usual speed.

Going to the door to call Peter Rockett, she was surprised to see Rance Belmont, with his splendid sorrel pacer, drive into the yard. He came into the house a few minutes afterwards and seemed to be making preparations to stay for supper.

A sudden resolve was formed in Mrs. Corbett's mind as she watched him hanging up his coat and making a careful toilet at the square looking- gla.s.s which hung over the oilcloth-covered soap box on which stood the wash-basin and soap saucer. She called to him to come into the pantry, and while she hurriedly peeled the potatoes she plunged at once into the subject.

"Rance," she began, "you go to see Mrs. Brydon far too often, and people are talking about it."

Rance shrugged his shoulders.

"Now, don't tell me you don't care, or that it's none of my business, though that may be true."

"I would never be so lacking in politeness, however true it might be!"

he answered, rolling a cigarette.

Mrs. Corbett looked at him a minute, then she broke out, "Oh, but you are the smooth-tongued gent!--you'd coax the birds off the bushes; but I want to tell you that you are not doing right hanging around Mrs.

Brydon the way you do."

"Does she object?" he asked, in the same even tone, as he slowly struck a match on the sole of his boot.

"She's an innocent little lamb," Mrs. Corbett cried, "and she's lonely and homesick, and you've taken advantage of it. That poor lamb can't stand the prairie like us old pelters that's weatherbeaten and gray and toughened--she ain't made for it--she was intended for diamond rings and drawing-rooms, and silks and satins."

Rance Belmont looked at her, still smiling his inexplicable smile.

"I can supply them better than she is getting them now," he said.

Mrs. Corbett gave an exclamation of surprise.

"But she's a married woman," she cried, "and a good woman, and what are you, Rance? Sure you're no mate for any honest woman, you blackhearted, smooth-tongued divil!" Mrs. Corbett's Irish temper was mounting higher and higher, and two red spots burned in her cheeks. "You know as well as I do that there's no happiness for any woman that goes wrong. That woman must stand by her man, and he's a good fellow, Fred is; such a fine, clean, honest lad, he never suspects anyone of being a crook or meanin' harm. Why can't you go off and leave them alone, Rance? They were doin' fine before you came along. Do one good turn, Rance, and take yourself off."

"You ask too much, Mrs. Corbett. I find Mrs. Brydon very pleasant company, and Mr. Fred does not object to my presence."

"But he would if he knew how the people talk about it."

"That is very wrong of them, and entirely unavoidable," Rance answered, calmly, "But the opinion of the neighbors has never bothered me yet,"

he continued; "why should it in this instance?"

Mrs. Corbett's eyes flashed ominously.

"Do you know what I'd do if it was my girl you were after?" she asked, pausing in her work and fixing her eyes on him.

"Something very unpleasant, I should say, by the tone of your voice-- and, by the way, you are pointing your potato knife at me--"

Mrs. Corbett with an effort controlled her temper.

"I believe, Mrs. Corbett, you would do me bodily injury. What a horrible thought, and you a former officer in the Salvation Army!"

Rance was smiling again and enjoying the situation. "What a thrilling headline it would make for the Brandon _Sun_: 'The Black Creek Stopping-House scene of a brutal murder. Innocent young man struck down in his youth and beauty.' You make me shudder, Mrs. Corbett, but you look superb when you rage like that; really, you women interest me a great deal. I am so fond of all of you!"

"You're a divil, Rance!" Mrs. Corbett repeated again. "But you ain't goin' to do that blessed girl any harm--she's goin' to be saved from you some way."

"Who'll do it, I wonder?" Rance seemed to triumph over her.

"There is One," said Maggie Corbett, solemnly, "who comes to help when all other help fails."

"Who's that?" he asked, yawning.

Maggie Corbett held up her right hand.

"It is G.o.d!" she said slowly. Rance laughed indulgently. "A myth--a name--a superst.i.tion," he sneered; "there is no G.o.d any more."

"There is a G.o.d," she said, slowly and reverently, for she was Maggie Murphy now, back to the Army days when G.o.d walked with her day by day, "and He can hear a mother's prayer, and though I was never a mother after the flesh, I am a mother now to that poor girl in the place of the one that's gone, and I'm askin' Him to save her, and I've got me answer. He will do it."

There was a gleam in her eyes and a white glow in her face that made Rance Belmont for one brief moment tremble, but he lighted another cigarette and with a bow of exaggerated politeness left the room.

The days that followed were anxious ones for Mrs. Corbett. Many stoppers sat at her table as the Christmas season drew near, and many times she heard allusions to her young neighbor which filled her with apprehension. She had carefully counted the days that it would take her letter to reach its destination, and although there had been time for a reply, none came.

CHAPTER VIII.

_SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT_.

It was a wind-swept, chilly morning in late November, and Evelyn Brydon, alone in the silent little house, stood at the window looking listlessly at the dull gray monochrome which stretched before her.

The unaccustomed housework had roughened and chapped her hands, and the many failures in her cooking experiments, in spite of Mrs, Corbett's instructions, had left her tired and depressed, for a failure is always depressing, even if it is only in the construction of the things which perish.

This dark morning it seemed to her that her life was as gray and colorless as the bleached-out prairie--the glamor had gone from everything.

She and Fred had had their first quarrel, and Fred had gone away dazed and hurt by the things she had said under the stress of her anger. He was at a loss to know what had gone wrong with Evelyn, for she had seemed quite contented all the time. He did not know how the many little annoyances had piled up on her; how the utter loneliness of the prairie, with its monotonous sweep of frost-killed gra.s.s, the deadly sameness, and the perpetual silence of the house, had so worked upon her mind that it required but a tiny spark to cause an explosion.

The spark he had supplied himself when he had tried to defend his brothers from her charges. All at once Evelyn felt herself grow cold with anger, and the uncontrolled hasty words, bitterer than anything she had ever thought, utterly unjust and cruel, sprang to her lips, and Fred, stung to the quick with the injustice of it, had gone away without a word.

It was with a very heavy heart that he went to his work that day; but he had to go, for he was helping one of the neighbors to thresh, and every dry day was precious, and every man was needed.