The Wind Before the Dawn Part 56

Elizabeth was ready for the storm, and met it without flurry. She looked at her husband quietly, steadily, sorrowfully.

"I shall sign no mortgages, if that is what you are in doubt about," she said. "I had not intended to ask for a legal division of the property, but since you demand the right to make loans, I shall not cripple your plans with what is your own. I will have my part set aside; you can farm it in any way you choose, but you can only mortgage what is yours. I would have told you so if you had played fair and discussed this thing with me instead of leaving the house or bl.u.s.tering. You can tell me what you mean to do where I am concerned--you would if I were a man--or you can take just what you did to-day. You try to put me where I can't help myself before strangers when you want me to do a thing you know I don't think I ought to do; and you can't handle me that way any longer."

John Hunter had been working himself into a pa.s.sion as he listened and burst out:

"And You'll work for the best interests of this farm, that's what You'll do! Every time I ask you to sign a paper you make a little more fuss.

Because I got in pretty deep before is no sign I'm going to do it again, and when I tell you to sign anything You'll do it."

His feet were very wide apart, and he thrust his face forward at her, his eyes glaring into hers with every trick which instinct prompted him to use in compelling her obedience.

Elizabeth barely glanced at him, and then looked down at the floor, quietly considering in what way she should reply to such an attack.

John was disconcerted; his little stage play had fallen flat.

After a moment's pause, Elizabeth began very quietly:

"I will not interfere with anything you do about the land which has been left to me, except that I will not have one cent of mortgage on it. If you will keep out of debt, you can manage it any way you choose, but I will have every step of the business explained to me which involves the safety of my home, and it will be explained to me beforehand--or the same thing will happen that has just happened. I will not be deceived, even in little things."

The girl looked him squarely and kindly in the face, but her look was as firm as if he had not bl.u.s.tered.

"I have not deceived you. I brought this man here and explained the whole thing before your face, besides telling you the other day that I intended to have that land."

"You are shuffling with the truth, and you know it," she said sternly.

"You did not tell me you had made any arrangements with him, nor that you intended to do so, only in a general way. You thought you'd catch me before him when it came to signing the papers, and then you thought I couldn't help myself."

"I have not tried to deceive you! I brought him here and explained every detail," he said with such a righteous appearance of innocence that Elizabeth was tempted to laugh. "We've fallen to a pretty state of affairs when my own wife hints at my having lied to her," John insisted.

Elizabeth spoke slowly, measuring her words, realizing that the crisis of their lives was upon them.

"I will not accuse you any more, but I will explain the plan on which I will do business with you."

"You needn't bother," John interrupted sarcastically. "I will let you run it."

"I will not go into debt," Elizabeth continued as calmly as if he had not interrupted. "That is the absolute decision I have come to. You will not explain to me _after_ you have decided to do a thing and in the presence of other people, where my property and my freedom are concerned. On the other hand, if you are determined to go into debt and branch out into a larger business, I feel that I cannot deny you the right to do as you wish with what is your own, and if you choose to do so will divide the property and leave you as free to mortgage and sell as if you were not married to me. I will leave you as free as I ask to be myself."

"Free! Free to be made a fool of. No, ma'am; you don't run any such gag as that on me. The people in this community are only too anxious to talk about me; they'd roll it under their tongues like a sweet morsel, that as soon as you got hold of the money you put the screws on me. You gave Johnson just such a handle this afternoon as that. You'll behave yourself, and look after your house and child as a woman ought to do, and I'll take charge of the work out of doors as a man ought to do."

Elizabeth interrupted him eagerly:

"Now right there, John, you have struck the very heart of the thing which first made me feel that I must take care of myself in my own way. You have never allowed me to bake a pie or a loaf of bread, nor churn, nor anything without you told me how to do it; and then you feel that you have the right to mortgage the home right over my head and think I have no rights in the matter."

It was John's turn to interrupt eagerly.

"Who put that home over your head?" he asked, for the first time addressing himself to the real issue of the home.

Elizabeth looked at him steadily. She was surprised to find herself talking thus quietly, she who had been so p.r.o.ne to emotional hindrances.

"Since I have been in your house I have had my food and clothes. I don't have to tell you that my mere work is worth far more than that. I have borne you a child. Motherhood ent.i.tles me to a share in the estate, since I have the child on my hands; besides, I could have been teaching school these years and not only earned my living but have been free to go and come as I have never been free here."

"That has nothing to do with it. You are married and your duty lies here as well as your work. It's a wife I want. If you're going to be a wife, be one; if you're going to be a boss, I want to know it, and I'll get out."

"Two things I will have my say about: I will not mortgage the half of the land which is mine, and I will not be interfered with when I have to correct Jack," Elizabeth said slowly. "Also when I see fit to go anywhere I shall go hereafter. I was never allowed to go to see Aunt Susan, and she went down to her death thinking I didn't want to come. Of course that's different now: I do go when I want to these days, but I got my first warning right there that I must take care of myself. You don't intend to tell me anything about what you mean to do with me, ever, if you can help it."

"You'll go into Colebyville and sign the papers on that land all the same," John said doggedly.

"I will sign no papers till there is a legal division of the property, John. I mean what I say. I'll let people talk if you crowd me before them," the girl said decisively.

John glared at her in desperation.

"d.a.m.n it! no wonder folks talked the week we were married! I've been humiliated ever since I brought you into this house," the man cried, breaking into a pa.s.sion again. "A pretty figure You'll cut, with this last thing added to your reputation. Everybody knows you couldn't get along with your father. I let you down easy with Johnson just now, in spite of the humiliating place you put me in, but if you think I'm going to be driven at your beck and call you're mistaken."

John stopped to give effect to his words. He was just beginning to realize that Elizabeth was not giving up, and that it was a fight to the finish.

The feature John disliked was that it was a fight in the open. Well, let her fight in the open, she should see that he would not be beaten.

Elizabeth, to be less conscious of the eyes glaring at her, picked up her sewing, which had been tossed on the lounge an hour ago, and began to ply her needle.

John broke out anew, really losing control of himself this time.

"It's the most outrageous thing I ever heard of--a woman humiliating her husband by refusing to sign papers when he has brought the man right into the house to fix them up! A pretty reputation I'll get out of it! It's sickening, disgusting. What do you expect me to do? Tell me that. If I want to buy a load of hay or a boar pig, am I to say to a man, 'Wait till I ask my wife if I can?'"

He stood leering at her, hot with pa.s.sion, determined to make her speak.

The vulgarity of his discussion nauseated her, but since she must discuss, she was resolved to do it quietly and on decent ground as far as she was concerned. Without fear she replied slowly:

"You know perfectly well what I have asked of you, John. You won't gain anything by bl.u.s.tering. I mean to be consulted on all important matters like loans, deeds, and mortgages, exactly as you'd consult with a man, and I intend to be consulted _before_ the thing is done, and not have you take advantage of me in the presence of strangers. You needn't shuffle matters.

You understand what I mean, and you can't fool me. Be sensible and do the right thing by me, and give me the chance to do the right thing by you."

"I've done the right thing by you already, and I'll go about my own affairs as a man should, and You'll attend to your own affairs as a woman should if you live with me, and leave me free to act like a man. Do you understand that?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, John," she said, falling back to the needle, which she had let rest again for a moment. There was a little choke in her voice, but she was firm.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, suspicious that she was not giving up as he intended that she should do.

"I mean just what I said a minute ago: I will let you mortgage your half of this farm after it is divided, but I will not sign any such papers on the other half. I will not be taken advantage of before strangers; I will let them talk first, and I will take care of my house as I see fit. Also, I will not speak when you manage Jack, and you will not interfere when I have to do it--that is, we will not interfere with each other _before the child_."

John Hunter's face turned scarlet, his cheeks stung as if he had been slapped; she was not giving in at all! He stood before her incensed beyond words for a moment, breathing hard and almost bursting with what he considered the insult of it; then the blood which had mounted to his head receded and left him deadly white.

"I don't exactly understand you," he said in level tones, "but you shall understand me. I will never be made a fool of by you again; if you're going to run things, say it out, and I'll let you have it and run it alone."

It was hopeless; she did not reply, but st.i.tched in and out on Jack's little frock, sick at heart with the shame of such a quarrel, since it was to accomplish nothing.

"Answer me!" he thundered.

Elizabeth laid her sewing on the lounge beside her, and rose to her feet.

She looked him squarely in the face and answered as he demanded.

"I will sign no papers of which I do not approve, and certainly none which I have been deceived about in any way. Aside from that you are free to run the farm as you wish."

"Then take the whole d.a.m.ned thing, and I'll go back to mother and make a home for her. She was never allowed to have a home in this house after you came into it," he flung out. "I'll take the Mitch.e.l.l County land, and you can have what's here. That's what you and Hornby and Hansen planned from the first, I should judge. That's why you got Noland to do it."