She called to them in a low voice, “Do you need light?”
Evered answered. “If you were out of the door there’d be light enough,” he said.
The woman lifted her hand to her lips in a hurt little gesture; and she stepped aside with no further word. She still stood thus, at one side of the door, when they came in. The lamplight fell full upon her, full upon her countenance.
The woman’s face, the face of this woman whose body still bore youthful lines, was shocking. There were weary contours in it; there were shadows of pain beneath the eyes; there was anguish in the mobile lips. The hair which had seemed like a halo showed now like a white garland; snow white, though it still lay heavy and glossy as a girl’s. She was like a statue of sorrow; the figure of a sad and tortured life.
The woman was Evered’s second wife; Evered’s wife, Mary Evered. His wife, whom he had won in a courtship that was like red flowers in spring; whom he had made to suffer interminably, day by day, till suffering became routine and death would have been happiness; and whom—believe it or no—Evered had always and would forever love with a love that was like torment. There is set perversely in man and woman alike an impulse to tease and hurt and distress those whom we love. It is, of this stuff that lovers’ quarrels are made; it is from this that the heartbreaks of the honeymoon are born. The men and women of the fairy tales, who marry and live happily ever after, are fairy tales themselves; or else they never loved. For loving, which is sacrifice and service and kindness and devotion, is also misunderstanding and distortion and perversity and unhappiness most profound. It is a part of love to quarrel; the making-up is often so sweet it justifies the anguish of the conflict. Mary Evered knew this. But Evered had a stiff pride in him which would not let him yield; be he ever so deeply wrong he held his ground; and Mary was sick with much yielding.
Annie Paisley, who lived at the next farm on the North Fraternity road, had given Mary Evered something to think about when Paisley died, the year before.
For over Paisley’s very coffin Annie had said in a thoughtful, reminiscent way: “Yes, Mary; Jim ’uz a good husband to me for nigh on thirty year. A good pervider, and a kind man, and a good father. He never drunk, nor ever wasted what little money we got; and we always had plenty to do with; and the children liked him. Kind to me, he was. Gentle.” Her eyes had narrowed thoughtfully. “But Mary,” she said, “you know I never liked him.”
Mary Evered had been a girl of spirit and strength; and if she had not loved Evered she would never have stayed with him a year. Loving him she had stayed; and the bitter years rolled over her; stayed because she loved him, and because she—like her son—understood the heart of the man, and knew that through all his ruthless strength and hard purpose, with all his might he loved her.
She said now in the kitchen: “You got the salt pork?”
“Of course I got the salt pork,” Evered told her in a level tone that was like a whip across her shoulders. He dumped his parcels on the table, pointed to one; and she took it up in a hurried furtive way and turned to the stove. John laid down his bundles, and Evered said to him: “Put the horse away.” The young man nodded, and went out into the farmyard.