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After that day, I went every afternoon with the other girls to the pond. The cold water was a blessed relief from the heat, and when I went into the cabin to lie down, I fell asleep easily, and woke greatly refreshed. Even the early suppers no longer disagreed with me, and I ate with good appetite. I found that I could be quite content sitting beside Robbie at the table, and he smiled at me readily. I made up my mind not to be a bother to him, but to be an obedient and compliant wife. I worked hard at my sewing. I always had someone to converse with, even though they were all women, and I missed my brothers, and even missed Robbie's teasing. I sometimes wished for a ride on horseback, but that was not possible now, so in the evenings I would walk down the path beside the corn field below the cabin, and through the wood beyond it. The air beneath the trees was pleasant, and when I returned to the cabin, I was only pleasantly tired.
Many days Robbie did not come in to dinner; I did not want to ask whether anyone knew where he was, for I felt that, as his wife, I should know. I supposed that everyone knew that he did not sleep with me. I gleaned from the talk at mealtimes that the hay was all put by; I felt a thread of worry and loneliness, then anger began to rise in me as I thought of how he was neglecting me.
After the meal I went with the girls to swim. Though I was cool and refreshed in my body, my mind was roiling with thoughts of Robbie, my heart with anger toward him. I had wanted to be his wife; yet he treated me no differently than he had done when we were children together. Before, when I had imagined marriage to him, I had dreamed of living with him at Brianag, sleeping with him in one of the big bedrooms, making love with him every night before we slept, waking up with him in the mornings; my dream had not come true and the reality of our marriage was a bitter disappointment. But for the child in my womb, I may as well have been back at Gillean.
I rolled onto my side and looked out of the window. How I wished for Robbie to come to the cabin! How I longed to feel his arms around me, his mouth upon mine! He was my husband! Why did he not behave as such? I rolled onto my back again, staring up at the log beams which held up the cabin's roof.