A Place Called Bliss (13 page)

“Come, cousin,” Wallace said calmly. “Let me show you around.”

“Thank you,” Margo managed in a shaking voice, “but I need to . . . to . . . go with Kezzie.” And she fled into the wide hall of Heatherstone and up the stone stairs following closely at the heels of Kezzie, who seemed to know just where to go.

The children’s supper was served in the nursery, with supervision by someone named Beadle, a sharp-eyed, needle-thin woman who apparently knew her charge well and kept a keen eye on Wallace. Nevertheless, his booted, swinging foot managed to cruelly crack against Margo’s shin time and again, until she turned sideways in her chair, to Wallace’s amusement and Beadle’s disapproval. Beadle was even more grim of face when Wallace, watching for a time when the woman’s face was turned, overturned Margo’s glass, flinging its contents not only all across the table but onto Margo and—heavens!—Beadle as well. This fiasco came as near bringing the shaken Margo to tears as anything could have; not for her own sake, but for Beadle’s. With tears burning her lids and her voice thin, Margo managed, “I’m sorry, Beadle,” but she was rewarded by that lady’s sigh and Wallace’s smirk.

Too young to defend herself, too young, really, to understand, the child Margo suffered countless humiliations and numerous
physical hurts during the next two months when, mercifully, the visit was shortened and the Hugh Galloways returned home.

Kezzie, who had cared for Wallace when he was small, was not blind to what went on; she was not always available, however, to protect her young charge. But she was as ready to leave as Margo, having visited the graves of her husband and three dead children, made a few visits to old acquaintances, and taken Margo, and often Wallace, on various expeditions around the area.

With the carriage at the door and farewells being said, Margo had come prepared. With care she had stood before the mirror after Kezzie had fastened her small hat on her head, and worried and worked a hat pin into it so that it thrust itself out over one ear but was concealed by her hair.

Sure enough, Wallace, with considerable delight that he had her at his mercy for the moment, and after he had dutifully kissed Sophia, backed Margo against the carriage wheel and brought his face down to hers. Turning her cheek toward him and quickly raising her hand as if to hold her hat, she waited the proper moment. Wallace kissed the proffered cheek and, with purpose, pressed his face toward her ear. Margo gave the pin a thrust with the hand already raised and in place. With a gasp Wallace jerked back his head, his hand going to a lip that had promptly showed a drop of blood.

Frightened and trembling, Margo turned and clambered into the carriage. The last she saw of Heatherstone, Scotland, was her cousin Wallace, handkerchief to his lower face, his eyes slitted with fury, one fist clenched at his side.

“Well done, lassie,” Kezzie murmured as she made a show of rearranging her young charge’s hat.

Through the passing of the next uneventful years, Margo was almost able to put Scotland and its bad memories from her mind. Heatherstone, Canada, was all and in all, and her world rarely extended beyond its borders.

When, at age thirteen, another visit to the “old country” was planned, Margo barely gave Wallace a thought, believing he would have outgrown his foolish childhood. Consequently she looked forward to the trip with some excitement; it would be a welcome change from the ordinary routine of her life.

Now in his early twenties, Wallace had lost most of his pimples, but his complexion was pallid, his mannerisms languid, his eyes too knowing, his hands too free.

Though the outright physical injuries ceased, Wallace’s attentions were just as physical in another way. At five the child Margo had been shaken and appalled at actions she couldn’t understand; at thirteen it was no different. Innocent as a Scottish bluebell, she was again shaken and appalled at actions she didn’t understand: a hand run up and down her arm, a leg thrust against her own, kisses—no biting of the ear, but attempted nibbling of her lips—and glances that, not understood, sent shivers up and down her back. She left Scotland a much wiser girl.

Wallace’s farewell kiss this time was proper enough, but his hand, on the side away from the family and servants, pinched Margo—not cruelly, but suggestively—and his face, when he drew back, was filled with that remembered, and hated, satisfaction.

That pale face with the light of victory in the narrow eyes was Margo’s last glimpse of her cousin Wallace.

“I’ll never, never come back,” she vowed silently as the carriage whirled away from Heatherstone, Scotland.

But Wallace—would he come to Heatherstone, Canada?

Dear Mam:

Feb. 11, 1879

One thing I will say about the life of a homesteader: the role of womanhood is greatly respected. Here, on the frontier, our worth is being recognized! While, of course, our physical strength remains inferior to our men’s, our strengths in other areas are far superior. I think history must show it to be so.

Our special gifts, Mam, are not only shown in the old, recognized ways—housekeeping, child-bearing, and so on, but in nursing, teaching, and all the finer skills that are so often taken for granted. If there is no wife and mother in the pioneer homestead it is a sorry place indeed.

Pity the poor bachelor! And we have several in Bliss and the surrounding areas. Sometimes they are unmarried, other times the wife cannot or will not submit to the stringent requirements to prove up their place. I figure, Mam, that what Angus must endure, I must also. As for the children, they
will remember these days, I think, as sweet in many ways. Certainly the family is close in all ways, for we need each other so. Company is always enriching in one way or another, and every little gain, in any way, is a source of satisfaction.

Winter is upon us, and it is severe. Hidden away here in our wee ‘hoosie,’ we’re not much different than the rabbits when they burrow away, or the beavers hidden in their lodges. For us all, survival is basic.

But for us humans there has to be more than food to make us feel fulfilled, and this is where a mother is so important (never have I blessed my role so fervently as I do these days, nor appreciated how important it is).

It was a great moment when we unloaded our carts and emptied our tent and moved into our cabin. Of this I’ve written before, and trust my letters have reached you. We must go to Prince Albert for our mail and, during this winter weather, that is not often, so we hear from you seldom. I must say, when Angus makes the trip, I am overcome with dread that he will not return, or that he will be greatly delayed somewhere, and we will be left alone here, with wood for the stove running out, food getting low, and the animals in the little barn needing attention. I know this is wrong of me and that I am showing little faith in the love and care of my heavenly Father. I do need help along this line so much, Mam! I feel like I am holding on to a very slender thread, having been taught so little and being so ignorant of spiritual things. All I know is, the slender thread has been enough. I know God won’t let go, and I daren’t. But oh, I need discipling so badly! I read my Bible and pray.

“Mummie!” Cameron called from the window. Having heard a sound other than the scratching of his mother’s pen, the popping of the fire, and the stirring of his small sister in her
sleep, he had hurried to the window, breathed on its ice-furred glass, rubbed and scraped a hole, and discovered the source of the sound, now the jingle of harness, and turned to call over his shoulder excitedly, “Comp’ny! Somebody’s coming!”

Hastily gathering up her writing material, Mary thrust it aside, gave a hasty glance down at her apron, found it spotted and removed it, and joined Cameron at the window. Sure enough, a horse and cutter had stopped at a hearty “Whoa!” As Mary and Cammie watched, the lap robe was pushed back, and someone reached a foot toward the snow-packed patch of yard just outside the cabin door.

So bunglesome were the newcomer’s wraps that Mary had the door open and had called a greeting before she determined if it was man or woman (or bear!) that approached. But the voice echoing cheerily through the scarf wound around the head was clearly feminine. Behind her, another figure had gone to the horse’s head, and called, “Is there room in the barn?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Mary called back. “Angus—my husband—is there—”

“I’ll find him,” came the response, and the man led the horse and rig toward the small log barn. The nearer rotund figure had reached the door, stamping at the sill to remove whatever snow had been picked up on the way from the cutter, gray eyes sparkling and the mouth, as soon as the scarf was unwound, smiling.

There they stood—two strangers—smiling so happily at each other that they might have been bosom friends for many years. And indeed, if it hadn’t been for the bulky, snow-flecked wraps, Mary might very well have drawn this new acquaintance into a warm, welcoming embrace. As it was, her voice rang with the sincerity of her feelings.

“Oh, do come in. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to see you. I’m Mary Morrison—”

“I know,” the voice emerging from the scarf said. “Sadie LeGare told me.”

God bless dear Sadie!

“We were in town last week. Sadie saw me in the store and told me about the new family in Bliss.” Removing her gloves, stuffing them in her pockets, and beginning to unbutton the fur coat that made her almost as round as the beavers it had originally graced, the woman added, “We’re the Raabs. I’m Cee, short for Celia, and Bela, my husband. No children—yet.” And the removal of the coat revealed the reason for the rolling gait and the round form: Cee Raab was very much “with child.”

“Due—soon?” Mary asked, though it was not too difficult to assume as Cee seated herself to better remove the overshoes on her feet and even then, with a laugh, needed to submit to Mary’s help.

“Very soon. And that’s one of the reasons I’m here. Though I’d have come anyway—to get acquainted.”

“I’m so glad you did,” Mary said fervently, setting the overshoes by the stove and hanging up the coat and scarf on the nails beside the door where her own family’s wraps hung.

“This is Cameron, our son,” Mary said, turning to the boy standing expectantly at her side. Like a man, Cammie extended his hand, his warm, small one going into the icy-cold one, in proper fashion.

“And this,” Mary added, having caught sight of Molly’s black, tousled curls peeping around the curtain that had been strung to partition off part of the cabin in an effort for privacy for sleeping and dressing, “is Molly.” In a flash Molly was across the floor and to her mother, burying her head in her mother’s skirt; it had been a while since the Morrisons had had “comp’ny.”

Mary moved her guest to the comfort of a rocker and the warmth of the spot at the side of the stove. While Cee spoke to the children, Mary stuffed fresh wood in the range and pulled the kettle toward the front where it would quickly boil. Tea—good, hot tea—that was the next step in protocol, whether in croft in Scotland or cabin in Canada. Tea—it would bond the two new friends as they sipped together, equally as important as the warmth and comfort it would minister to the traveler.