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Fortunately, Laird knew his business. He did everything he needed her to do to get the milking done. She wouldn’t have had the stomach to tell him what to do otherwise. She couldn’t even glance at him or acknowledge his presence. Making eye contact with his stark, bewitching eyes was too much for her.
At least the milking was becoming easier for her, and she finished faster each time. But he didn’t leave to go about his own business when she finished. He tagged at her heels when she brought the milk to the house, and he lurked around the doorstep as she finished her breakfast, tended the fire, and washed up the dishes.
To Ellen’s horror, when she went out for a walk in the afternoon, Laird followed her. No matter where she went, he kept her in sight and even herded her where he wanted her to go like an anxious governess. Once, when she tried to walk down to the spring, he skirted around her from one side to the other to steer her along one path instead of another.
He couldn’t be worried about her, could he? When she looked at him, he returned her gaze with casual indifference. She should have known better than to think an animal like him could care about her. She spun around and walked away from him as quickly as she could, but he shadowed her more closely than ever.
She went back to the house and buried herself in work. She accomplished all those tasks that irked her about Elliot’s housekeeping. She swept and scrubbed the floor to her own standards of cleanliness. She aired out the bedding and decided to launder them the next day. And she collected all the skillets and kettles and plates and bowls and spoons and cups and scrubbed and scalded them until they were as clean as she wanted them to be.
In the back of her mind, she took note of Laird not far away, but the harder she worked, the less she noticed him. She should remember this for the future. Whenever he annoyed or disconcerted her, she only had to throw herself into her work to forget about him.
She noticed that he acted the same way toward her. The more she occupied herself with anything other than him, the more he relaxed and left her to her own affairs.
By the time she did all her chores, the sun sloped low in the west, and Ellen got ready for milking time. She and Laird went through their established routine, and at the end of it, Laird slipped out of the stall while Ellen put her buckets in order. When she got back to the house and set the buckets on the table, Laird was already in his usual place in front of the fire.
She grumbled to herself about driving him out, but she couldn’t summon the courage to confront him. She left him where he was and ignored him. The same thing happened when she got ready for bed. She flatly refused to sleep in the same house with that vicious monster. She would teach him to stay outside when Elliot was away.
But when the time came, she managed to forget to do it. She broke up the embers in the fireplace and covered them with ashes the way Elliot taught her. After that, darkness enveloped the house and she groped her way to the bed.
She pulled the covers up over her face. Laird sighed somewhere in the room. That was the only indication he was there, leaving Ellen with the illusion she was alone.
The next day started well enough. The sun came out in the morning, and Ellen went for a walk before heading back to the house to do the laundry. She set the kettle of water on the fire to boil while she stripped the linens from the bed and collected the kitchen towels and those of Elliot’s socks and underwear she planned to wash.
She set up her work station outside by the wood pile, where a few big round sections of logs stood on their ends. They would make ideal benches for beating the clothes. She found a disused hatchet handle to use for a beater.
Laird sat with his feet together a little ways away, observing all her activities with interest. Ellen imagined him tossing popcorn into his mouth like a spectator at the circus. For all she knew, Laird never saw Elliot doing laundry before. For all she knew, Elliot never washed his clothes or bedding at all.
Ellen rolled up her sleeves and set to work. The job took the better part of the day, what with beating and soaping and rinsing and rinsing again. Then there was the drying. By the time she got the blankets from the bed washed and rinsed and wrung out, the afternoon started to slip away. She wasn’t sure the bedding would dry in time, so she hung them by the fire in the house.
And then it was milking time, and then it was supper time. The time sure did slip away when a person kept busy. Out here in the middle of nowhere all alone, the time disappeared more quickly than ever. She always thought it would be the other way around.
She went into the house in the afternoon and set the skillet on the fire to cook supper. Laird padded into the room, but he didn’t come to his usual place. He left the area around the fireplace clear for her to work. She realized she hadn’t given him a second thought all day.
As she waited for the skillet to heat up, she sat outside in the fading evening. She pulled over another section of log and leaned her tired back against the timbers of the wall. She breathed the clear air and sighed with satisfaction that she would be going back inside to a clean house at last.
