The Land of Promise: A Comedy in Four Acts (1922)

by W. Somerset Maugham

  "Come down to keep me company? That's real nice of you, I'm sure."

  "I supposed, naturally, that you had gone. You usually have at this hour."

  "You don't know how it flatters a fellow to have women folks study his habits like that," he said with a grin.

  "I knew that my brother had left the house, since I saw him go. I took it for granted that all his employees left when he did. Let me assure you, once and for all, that your habits are of no possible interest to me."

  Taylor put on his hat and went to the door. Just as he was about to open it, he changed his mind and came back to the table where Nora had seated herself and stood leaning on the back of his chair looking down at her.

  "It's all right for us to row," he said, "but if I were you I'd go a little easy with Gertie. She's all right and a good sort at bottom, you can take it from me. Yesterday, I admit she was downright nasty. I guess you rile her up more than she's used to. But I want to see you two get on."

  "It's my turn to feel flattered," said Nora sarcastically.

  "Well, so long," he said with undiminished good humor as he went out.

  Gertie appeared almost at once from the pantry.

  "I heard what he said. I couldn't help it. He was right--about us both. We don't hit it off. But I'm willing to give it another try."

  "I have little choice but to agree with you," said Nora bitterly.

  "Well, that's hardly the way to begin," retorted Gertie angrily.

  There was a certain air of restraint about them ail when they came in to dinner. Eddie looked both worried and anxious. But as he saw that the two women were going about their duties much the same as usual, he argued that the storm had blown over and brightened visibly.

  The men had pushed back their chairs and were preparing to light their after-dinner pipes.

  "We'll be able to start on the ironing this afternoon," said Gertie, addressing Nora for the first time since breakfast.

  "Very well."

  "I say," said Trotter, who rarely ventured on a remark while at the table, "it was a rare big wash you done this morning by the look of it on the line."

  "When she's been out in this country a bit longer, Nora'll learn not to wear more things than she can help," said Gertie.

  As a matter of fact, she had no intention of criticising Nora at the moment. She meant, merely, that she would be more economical with experience. But Nora was in the mood to take fire at once.

  "Was there more than my fair share?" she asked sharply.

  "You use double the number of stockings than what I do. And everything else is the same."

  "I see. Clean but incompetent."

  "There's many a true word spoken in jest," said Gertie with angry emphasis.

  "Say, Reg," Taylor broke in hastily, "is it true that when you first came out you asked Ed where the bath-room was?"

  "That's right," laughed Trotter. "Ed told 'im there was a river a mile and a 'alf from 'ere, an' that was the only bath-room 'e knowed."

  "One gets used to that sort of thing, eh, Reg?" said Marsh good-naturedly.

  "Ra-ther. If I saw a proper bath-room now, it would only make me feel nervous."

  "I knew a couple of Englishmen out in British Columbia," broke in Taylor, "who were bathing, and the only other people around were Indians. The first two years they were there, they wouldn't have anything to do with the Indians because they were so dirty. After that the Indians wouldn't have anything to do with them."

  He pointed this delectable anecdote by holding his nose.

  "What a disgusting story!" said Nora.

  "D'you think so? I rather like it."

  " You would."

  "Now don't start quarreling, you two. And on Frank's last day."

  Nora gave her brother a quick glance. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he meant by Frank's last day, but seeing that Taylor was watching her with an amused smile, she held her tongue. Getting up, she began clearing away the table.

  Hornby, ramming the tobacco into his pipe, went over to the corner by the stove, where Gertie was scalding out her large dishpan, and tried to interest her in the number of logs he had split since breakfast, without conspicuous success.

  Trotter stood looking out of the window, while Marsh stretched himself lazily in one of the rocking chairs with a sigh of content. Things were beginning to shake down a little better. There had been a time yesterday when he feared that everything was off. He knew Nora's temper of old and he knew his wife's jealous fear of her criticism. It would take some rubbing to wear off the sharp corners. But things were coming out all right, after all. They'd soon be working together like a well-broken team. Gertie had been nasty about the bread. But apparently everything was patched up. And with Frank once gone, and the new chap--a man of the Trotter type, who would never obtrude himself--he foresaw that everything would run on wheels, an idea dear to his peace-loving soul.

  Not that he was not sorry to lose Frank. In the first place, he liked him, and then he was a good, steady, hard-working fellow, one of the kind you didn't have to stand over. But, naturally, he wanted to get back to his own place, now that he had saved up a bit. Every man liked being his own master.

  Taylor alone had remained at his place at the table. Nora had cleared away everything except the dishes at his place. She never went near him if she could avoid it.

  "I guess I'm in your way," he said, rising.

  "Not more than usual, thank you."

  Taylor gave a little laugh.

  "I guess you'll not be sorry to see the last of me."

  Nora paused in her work, and leaning on the table with both hands, looked him steadily in the face.

  "I can't honestly say that it makes the least difference to me whether you go or stay," she said coldly.

  "When does your train go, Frank?" asked Hornby from his corner.

  "Half-past three; I'll be starting from here in about an hour."

  "Reg can go over with you and drive the rig back again," said Marsh.

  "All right. I'll go and dress myself in a bit."

  "I guess you'll be glad to get back to your own place," said Gertie warmly.

  She had always liked Frank Taylor--a man who worked hard and earned his money. She did not begrudge him a cent of it, nor the pleasure he had in the thought of getting back to his own place. He was the kind of man who should set up for himself.

  "Well, I guess I'll not be sorry." He sat looking out of the window with a sort of dreamy air, as if seeing far to the westward his own land.

  So that was the reason for his going. He had a place of his own. He was only a hired man for the moment. Eddie had told her that a man frequently had to hire out after a succession of bad seasons. What of it? His keeping it to himself was the crowning impertinence!

  CHAPTER VIII

  "I'll do the washing, Nora, and you can dry," said Gertie in that peculiar tone which Nora had learned to recognize as the preface to something disagreeable.

  "All right."

  "I've noticed the things aren't half clean when I leave them to you to do."

  "I'm sorry; why didn't you tell me?"

  "I suppose yon never did the washing-up in England. Too grand?"

  But Nora was not to be ruffled just now. Her resentment against Taylor, who was sitting watching her as if he read her thoughts--she often wondered how much of them he did read--made anything Gertie said seem momentarily unimportant.

  "I don't suppose anyone would wash up if they could help it. It's not very amusing."

  "You always want to be amused?"

  "No, but I want to be happy."

  "Well," said Gertie sharply, "you've got a roof over your head and a comfortable bed to sleep in, three good meals a day and plenty to do. That's all anybody wants to make them happy, I guess."

  "Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Reggie from his corner.

  "Well," said Gertie, turning sharply on him, "if you don't like Canada, why did you come out?"

  "You don't suppose," said Hornby,
rising slowly to his feet, "I'd have let them send me if I'd have known what I was in for, do you? Not much. Up at five in the morning and working about the place like a navvy till your back feels as if it 'ud break, and then back again in the afternoon. And the same thing day after day. What was the good of sending me to Harrow and Oxford if that's what I've got to do all my life?"

  There was a tragic dignity in his tone which for the moment held even Gertie silent. It was her husband who answered him, and Gertie's jealous ear detected a certain wistfulness in his voice.

  "You'll get used to it soon enough, Reg. It is a bit hard at first, I'll admit. But when you get your foot in, you wouldn't change it for any other life."

  "This isn't a country for a man to go to sleep in and wait for something to turn up," said Gertie aggressively.

  "I wouldn't go back to England now, not for nothing," said Trotter, stung to an unusual burst of eloquence. "England! Eighteen bob a week, that's what I earned. And no prospects. Out of work five months in the year."

  "What did you do in England!" asked Nora curiously.

  "Bricklayer, Miss."

  "You needn't call her Miss," said Gertie heatedly. "You call me Gertie, don't you? Well, her name's Nora."

  "What with strikes and bad times," went on Trotter unheeding, "you never knew where you was. And the foreman always bullying you. I don't know what all. I 'ad about enough of it, I can tell you. I've never been out of work since the day I landed. I've 'ad as much to eat as I wanted and I'm saving money. In this country everybody's as good as everybody else."

  "If not better," said Nora dryly.

  "In two years I shall be able to set up for myself. Why, there's old man Thompson, up at Pratt. He started as a bricklayer, same as I. Come from Yorkshire, he did. He's got seven thousand dollars in the bank now."

  "Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came. In those days they wouldn't have an Englishman, they'd have a Galician rather. In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you'd see often as not: 'No English need apply.'"

  "Well, it was their own fault," stormed Gertie. "They wouldn't work or anything. They just soaked."

  "It was their own fault, right enough. This was the dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England. They had the delusion over there that if a man was too big a rotter to do anything at all at home, he'd only got to be sent out here and he'd make a fortune."

  "I guess things ain't as bad as that now," spoke up Taylor. "They send us a different class. It takes an Englishman two years longer than anybody else to get the hang of things, but when once he tumbles to it, he's better than any of them."

  "Ah, well!" said Marsh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I guess nowadays everyone's glad to see the Englishman make good. When I nearly smashed up three years ago, I had no end of offers of help."

  "How did you nearly smash up?" asked Hornby interestedly.

  "Oh, I had a run of bad luck. One year the crop was frosted and the next year I was hailed out. It wants a good deal of capital to stand up against that."

  "That's what happened to me," said Taylor. "I was hailed out and I hadn't got any capital, so I just had to hire out." He turned suddenly to Nora. "If it hadn't been for that hail storm you wouldn't have had the pleasure of makin' my acquaintance."

  "How hollow and empty life would have been without that!" she said ironically.

  "I wonder you didn't just quit and start out Calgary way," put in Gertie.

  "Well," said Taylor slowly, "it was this way: I'd put in two years on my homestead and done a lot of clearing. It seemed kind of silly to lose my rights after all that. Then, too, when you've been hailed out once, the chances are it won't happen again, for some years that is, and by that time I ought to have a bit put by."

  "What sort of house have you got?" asked Nora.

  "Well, it ain't what you might call a palace, but it's large enough for two."

  "Thinking of marrying, Frank?" asked Marsh.

  "Well, I guess it's kind of lonesome on a farm without a woman. But it's not so easy to find a wife when you're just starting on your own. Canadian girls think twice before taking a farmer."

  "They know something, I guess," said Gertie grimly.

  "You took me, Gertie," laughed her husband.

  "Not because I wanted to, you can be sure of that. I don't know how you got round me."

  "I wonder."

  "I guess it was because you was kind of helpless, and I didn't know what you'd do without me."

  "I guess it was love, and you couldn't help yourself." Gertie stopped her work long enough to make a little grimacing protest.

  "I'm thinking of going to one of them employment agencies when I get to Winnipeg," said Taylor, moving his chair so that he could watch Nora's face, "and looking the girls over."

  "Like sheep," said Nora scornfully.

  "I don't know anything about sheep. I've never had to do with sheep."

  "And may I ask, do you think that you know anything about women?"

  "I guess I can tell if they're strong and willing. And so long as they ain't cock-eyed, I don't mind taking the rest on trust."

  "And what inducement is there for a girl to have you?"

  "That's why he wants to catch 'em young, when they're just landed and don't know much," laughed Trotter uproariously.

  "I've got my quarter-section," went on the imperturbable Frank, quite undisturbed by the laughter caused by Trotter's sally, "a good hundred and sixty acres with seventy of it cleared. And I've got a shack that I built myself. That's something, ain't it?"

  "You've got a home to offer and enough to eat and drink. A girl can get that anywhere. Why, I'm told they're simply begging for service."

  "Y-e-e-s. But you see some girls like getting married. There's something in the word that appeals to them."

  "You seem to think that a girl would jump at the chance of marrying you!" said Nora with rising temper.

  "She might do worse."

  "I must say I think you flatter yourself."

  "Oh, I don't know. I know my job, and there ain't too many as can say that. I've got brains."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "Well, I can see you're no fool."

  Gertie chuckled with amusement. "He certainly put one over on you then, Nora."

  "Because you've got no use for me, there's no saying but what others may have."

  "I forgot that there's no accounting for tastes."

  "I can try, can't I?"

  Wishing to escape any further conversation with the object of her detestation, and seeing her opportunity now that the dishes were washed, Nora started to empty the dishpan in the sink in the pantry. But Gertie, who divined her motive and wished the sport to continue, forestalled her.

  "I'll do it," she said. "You finish wiping the dishes."

  "It's very wise of you to go to an agency," said Nora in answer to his last question. "A girl's more likely to marry you when she's only seen you once than when she's seen you often."

  "It seems to make you quite mad, the thought of me marrying!" with a wink at the others.

  "You wouldn't talk about it like that unless you looked down upon women. Oh, how I pity the poor wretched creature who becomes your wife!"

  "Oh, I guess she won't have such a bad time--when I've broken her in to my ways."

  "And are you under the impression that you can do that?"

  "Yep."

  "You're not expecting that there'll be much love lost between you and the girl whom you--you honor with your choice?"

  "What's love got to do with it?" asked Taylor in affected surprise. "It's a business undertaking."

  "What!" Nora's eyes were dark with indignation and anger.

  "None at all. I give her board and lodging and the charm of my society. And in return, she's got to cook and bake and wash and keep the shack clean and tidy. And if she can do that, I'll not be particular what she looks like."
/>   "So long as she's not cock-eyed," Reggie reminded him.

  "No, I draw the line at that."

  "I beg your pardon," said Nora with bitter irony; "I didn't know it was a general servant you wanted. You spend a dollar and a half on a marriage license and then you don't have to pay any wages. It's a good investment."

  For the first time she seemed to have pierced the enemy's armor.

  "You've got a sharp tongue in your head for a girl, Nora."

  "Please don't call me Nora."

  "Don't be so silly, Nora," said her brother with a trace of irritation. "It's the custom of the country. Why, they all call me Ed."

  "I don't care what the custom of the country is. I'm not going to be called Nora by the hired man!"

  "Don't you bother, Ed," said Frank, apparently once more restored to his normal placidity; "I'll call her Miss Marsh if she likes it better."

  But Nora was not to be pacified. He wouldn't have dared take such a liberty with her had he not been on the eve of going away for good, she told herself. It was a last shot from a retreating enemy. Well and good. He should hear, if for the last time, what she thought of him!

  "I should like to see you married to someone who'd give you what you deserved. I'd like to see your pride humbled. You think yourself very high and mighty, don't you? I'd like to see a woman take you by the heartstrings and wring them till you screamed with pain."

  "Oh, Nora, how violent you are!" said Ed.

  "You're overbearing, supercilious and egotistic," went on Nora bitingly.

  "I'm not sure as I know what them long words means, but I guess they ain't exactly complimentary."

  "I guess they ain't," she mimicked.

  "I'm sorry for that." Taylor straightened himself a little in his chair. His blue eyes seemed to have caught a little of the light from Nora's.

  "I was thinking of offering you the position before I went to the employment agency."

  "How dare you speak to me like that!"

  "Don't fly into a temper, Nora," said Ed. While he didn't blame Frank, he wished he had not made that last speech. Why didn't he go and get ready for town? Here was Nora all upset again just as things had calmed down a bit!