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free, now kept them contained and secret. Sometimes she wondered if she
weren't becoming more like Stefan every day. It had been so long since either
of them had smiled.
After the meal was finished, they set out for home in their wagon. Stefan
sat hunched over the reins, swaying with the rocking motion as the wagon
jolted over the hard ruts in the road. Lilli was beside him, sitting stiffly
erect and resisting the rough motion. Her sightless gaze was fixed on the
distant horizon while Stefan watched the trotting horses.
"Mrs. Kreuger's baby should come before the harvest." Stefan made a rare
attempt at conversation. "That is good."
"Yes." Lilli had a cynical moment when she thought how inconvenient the men
would find it if Helga Kreuger went into labor when the threshers arrived.
"This is her second baby since they come here," he said, drawing a glance
from Lilli as she puzzled over his reason for this subject.
"Yes, it is," she replied.
For the space of several minutes, there was only the clopping of trotting
hooves and the creaking of the wagon to fill the silence. Stefan adjusted his
grip on the team's reins.
"Vhen ve go to town again, you go to the doctor and find out vhy you have
not had any babies," he stated tersely.
"Oh, Stefan." She breathed out his name in irritation and looked anywhere
but at him. "It isn't necessary to father a child to prove to the world--or to
Franz Kreuger--that you're a man."
An hour ago she had been priding herself on how well she kept her thoughts
and feelings to herself, and here they'd just burst through. It didn't matter
that what she had said was true. Her careless remark had hurt Stefan. He was
angry with her. She was learning a lot about men, and how sensitive they were
about this thing called manliness. Her problem was she had never really
thought of Stefan as a man such as Webb Calder. Stefan was her friend, her
uncle, her father. She hadn't realized there was this other side of him.
"Is it vrong for a man to vant a child?" His voice was thick in its angry
demand.
"No, it isn't wrong." Lilli frowned in helpless frustration, ashamed to
discover she did not want Stefan's child. "But this is not the time to have
one --not now when we are barely able to feed ourselves."
She'd said the wrong thing again. But it was true. The additional wheatland
had only put them further in debt. They sold more wheat, but more money was
spent for plow horses, equipment, hired help, and seed. It seemed they had
less and less money, instead of more.
"Stefan, I didn't mean that you haven't done everything you could to provide
for us." Lilli attempted to take the sting out of her previous remark. "You
have. It's just that things haven't worked out quite the way you thought they
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would."
"Ve vill have a better harvest this year," he insisted.
"Of course we will." They were empty words, issued for his benefit. But
Lilli knew the rains had come late this year. The stand of wheat was not
nearly as good as last year's.
"You find out vhy you don't have babies," Stefan repeated his earlier
demand.
"I will," she agreed flatly. A silent dread was on her. If the cause turned
out to be Stefan's impotence, it would ruin him
completely.
Again silence came between them as they traveled toward their home. Lilli
had always thought she knew Stefan so well--all her life. But that had been as
a child and a young girl. His quietness came from hiding inside himself so
others wouldn't know his failures and weaknesses. He was uncertain and
indecisive, his actions swayed and colored by those
dominant individuals around him. He wanted to be what he saw in other men. It
was their attitudes and behavior he adopted, taking their lead in a situation
and pretending it was his own. If Franz Kreuger hadn't been with him that
morning, Lilli doubted that Stefan would have shot Webb. He was driven to act
by his perception of what Franz Kreuger would have done in his place.
Then Lilli became caught up in her own confusion. Was she finding fault with
Stefan, making much out of his weaknesses, to justify the love she felt for
another man? There was only one clear certainty in her mind. She did not love
Stefan in the way that a woman loves a man. She cared for him deeply the way a
person cares for a close family friend. She owed him much for looking after
her when her parents died, although she had been the only one left for him,
too. And she owed him a wife's loyalty. If there was a persistent voice inside
her head that kept asking if she didn't owe herself some happiness, Lilli
tried not to hear it.
That evening after Stefan had fallen asleep, Lilli slipped out of bed,
taking care not to disturb him, and stole outside into the night. The coolness
of a night breeze wrapped its arms around her, stirring the thinness of her
long nightgown.
She turned her eyes to the west, the longing in them deep and sharp. Webb [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]