A Place Called Bliss (15 page)

“I’m hungry, Mummie,” a small voice said at Mary’s knee, and she looked into the eyes—so like her own—of her own dear Molly.

“Why, of course you are, lassie! It’s time for tea and Da will be in soon. Give me a moment to finish my letter to Grandmam—”

The birth of wee Howie,
Mary wrote lastly
, has made me long for another bairn for Angus and me. Seeing Bela Raab with his son made me yearn to place a son of his very own in Angus’s arms. And then, I suppose every woman feels a sort of sadness when she thinks she may have given birth to her last child. The Lord (and Angus) willing, I shall experience that wonderful blessing once again.

Yr. loving daughter, Mary

A
ccustomed to the world of good breeding, impeccable manners, and refined conversation, Sophia felt at times as though she were living on the edge of chaos, where all she had known was challenged by the untamed, the vigorous, the brash.

Accustomed to the aristocratic life with its contempt for unbridled emotions, she sensed the ebullience and turbulence that throbbed and pulsed with explosive possibilities, to the very gates of Heatherstone.

Accustomed to an accepted pattern dividing the genteel from the vulgar, and where the line was not crossed, this new intermingling of classes and crossing of standards seemed, to Sophia, to threaten her personally.

Far, far removed from Sophia the cabins where mothers raised their children on dirt floors, with low doors, no windows, and rain seeping through sod roofs. Beyond her
understanding the home where chairs were tree stumps and a feather bed was considered a luxury. Her dreariest imagination never conjured up a home with a water bucket and dipper and, on a shelf, some coffee, dried beans, flour, salt, and baking powder if you were lucky. Never had she seen an iron pot, frying pan, and coffeepot as the only utensils available to prepare her meals. Canvas or bed sheets never separated her sleeping quarters from those of her children.

All her life she had known that among crofters impoverished conditions existed, but it was so accepted, so much a part of their way of life, never challenged and rarely complained about, that her personal feelings had never been affronted. Now, though she had not experienced the rawness of life on the frontier, its very existence in thousands of rude dwellings seemed a thing alive, pulsating, pressing, not to be endured unendingly. There was a restlessness in their world, and even behind the massive doors and over the quiet carpets of Heatherstone it made its presence known. Legions of men and women came, like caterpillars creeping, moving, pressing into all the valleys and over all the hills and down all the rivers of the west, and their silence was loud.

Drinking her tea and planning her next garden party, just out of mind but not out of sense, countless women—no less wise, just as lovely, no better suited—washed on a scrub board beside a soddy, cooked over buffalo chips, swept wooden floors and sprinkled dirt ones, churned their own butter from cows they had milked, spun their own wool from sheep they had sheared, bathed their children in washtubs with soap they had made.

Of their gardening, canning, slaughtering, curing, and spinning, Sophia knew nothing but sensed much. Their activities, though removed in space, stirred the strong bastions of tradition in some unknown way, and Sophia felt herself to live on the edge of change. And didn’t like it.

Thank goodness for Hugh and his unchanging observance of all things solid and familiar. Well-bred, well-educated, well-mannered, well-behaved, well-spoken, a gentleman in all
respects, Hugh would do nothing more rash than raise a proper eyebrow should the world cave in.

And so, with grim disregard of the changing times, Sophia took extra care to raise her daughter within the boundaries of decorum and the traditions set by good Queen Victoria. Margaret . . .“Margo” . . . sewed daintily on nothing whatsoever useful, had music lessons and voice lessons, memorized Bible verses (within reason), and had supervised play. There were tea parties, croquet, skits and amateur plays, and, in the winter, sleigh rides and skating.

Margo took care that all her friends wrote in her autograph book and she in theirs, such things as:

Be good, my dear, and let who will be clever;

Do noble things, not dream them all day long;

And so make life, death, and the vast hereafter

One grand, sweet song.

At times she called with her mother and made brief appearances in the drawing room when guests were received. Tessie or some other qualified member of the staff took her for walks and occasionally picnics with friends.

With money no object and Margo’s training of vast importance, private tutors were hired for her education. Of course the spacious house offered a library of impressive proportion, and Margo had free rein (within reason) to all her father’s historical and scientific material. All instruction, all learning, was laced liberally with moral and cultural lessons so that, to all intents and purposes, Margo might as well have been raised and educated with her mother and father a generation earlier. Well educated in certain ways, she was ignorant of life, especially life in the new land, and peculiarly unsuited to be anything other than a lady of leisure.

Not unhappy, Margo was never truly happy except in the presence of Nanny Kezzie. Here the outside was forgotten as though it didn’t exist. Here, no matter her state of mind, no
matter her age, she found acceptance and love, a love that didn’t have to be earned, a love that was never questioned or doubted. Kezzie soothed her angel child in times of distress, doctored her every illness, and, through it all, dispensed honest, down-to-earth wisdom that was to offer the only balance Margo was to know to her pointless lifestyle.

The greatest misery of her young life was suffered with the appearance of a letter from Angus, Kezzie’s son-in-law in the savage and untamed territories (for so Margo supposed them to be).

Dear Mam
, a shaken Kezzie eventually read to her Mr. Hugh, to Sophia, and, later, to Margo. It was the only way she knew to make the child understand why her Granny/Nanny would forsake her.

After all these years, Mam, Mary is to have another child. While it has always been the longing of her heart, and mine, too, still I am near distracted with concern. As you know, though it has been almost a dozen years since we lost our wee bairn at sea and came close to losing our Mary, the memory has faded but little, and this new pregnancy has brought it all back. Especially since Mary is no longer young. My heart is very sore over the thought of the suffering she must endure.

You’ve talked often of coming to see us. And yet it has never come to pass; one thing or another has hindered. Now that the railroad is within two hundred miles of us, the trip is easier, and, except for the winter months, it is not the endurance experience it once was.

I’m asking, Mam, if you will come. Mary will not ask, and yet her anxieties are plain to me. Your presence is needed, Mam. Too, you haven’t seen our Molly and Cammie in all these years. Cam is almost a man, and Molly is budding into a sweet young woman.

Will you come? We all join in our pleas and prayers that you will do so.

Margo could not imagine life without Kezzie. And yet she was mature enough to understand the reason for her going. White-faced and silent she watched Kezzie, almost equally white-faced, make preparations to go.

Finally, whispering from quivering lips, Margo asked, “Kezzie . . . Granny . . . can I go, too?”

With an outright sob Kezzie turned from her packing to take the thirteen-year-old in her arms. Wordless, weeping together, Margo understood the futility of her request.

Sophia did her best. Gratified in some ways that the association had been broken between her child and her servant, she felt it was time to move on. Margaret, as she always called her daughter, would soon forget, and she hoped earnestly that Kezzie’s move would be a permanent one.

“After all,” she told Hugh, “it isn’t as if there is anything . . . constructive she can do anymore. . . .” Her voice trailed away when Hugh’s head, bent over his paper, stiffened, and his cheek tightened.

“I’ll never understand,” he said at last, quietly, “your attitude toward Kezzie. You’re not in some sort of competition with her, you know, Sophia—”

Now it was Sophia who stiffened.

“The Galloways are indebted to her in ways. . . .” Hugh was shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, in a way that was more speaking than the voice that trailed off into silence.

“Hugh,” Sophia began, helplessly, never quite able to express the uneasiness she experienced regarding Kezzie’s relationship to Margaret. Perhaps it stemmed from the fact that the elderly woman had been present at the child’s birth; perhaps she had bonded in the age-old way. At any rate, Sophia knew relief that the call had come for Kezzie’s help, so far away.

“We shall have to let her go,” Hugh said simply, adding, “but I believe she’d stay . . . if I asked her to do so. I’ll not, of course.
It’s Cameron and Molly’s turn. And Mary’s due.” With that he turned back to his paper.

Sophia did her best to step into the gap left by Kezzie’s absence, and there was a sweet summer of getting to know her own daughter better than ever before. Bordering on womanhood, Margo was showing signs of the dark beauty she would become. But a beauty she did not know she possessed, with no pride or arrogance because of it. If Margaret Galloway had any pride, it was in the Galloway name and the Galloway position. Understated in all ways, still it existed, a powerful force if necessary; a silent force, held in abeyance, at other times. It gave Margo a dignity, an assurance, the air and manner of an aristocrat taking all advantages for granted.

How much of this was based on the Galloway name and prestige, and how much on the love and security of fiercely loving and loyal Kezia Skye, was hard to say. But the first shifting of Margo’s confidence, not to mention her satisfaction with life, came with Kezzie’s letter in the fall of that year.

This is a very difficult letter to write. My heart, as always, is with my Mr. Hugh and his family. Such service, it seems, is born and bred into us, and, after a lifetime devoted to it, cannot be easily turned from.

My Mary has had a most difficult time of it, almost as bad as she went through on the crossing thirteen years ago. The bairn did not survive, and Mary barely.

This is the busy time of year, what with threshing, canning, reaping the bounty of a year’s hard labor and God’s free provision through the bush. One’s very existence during the coming year depends on the harvest. While my own strength has faded with the years, still I can do many things, and with dear Molly’s help (she’s almost sixteen now), we manage. Most of all, I can keep Mary quiet and resting,
whereas she’d be wild with worry otherwise because of the work.

Thankfully there is a school in Bliss now, and Mary has not had to teach the children for several years. Cameron attends Emmanuel College in Prince Albert; in bad weather he stays in town all week, with old friends Sadie and Pierre LeGare. There are numerous advantages here, and we are by no means an uncultured people. The “Penny Readings Society,” for instance (so called because of the admission charged), is uplifting as well as entertaining—when one can get to town. Sports are vigorous and exciting; Cameron excels at a game called “shinny,” which is played on ice. Baseball and cricket flourish but have been passed in enthusiasm by curling. Yes, Prince Albert possesses many natural advantages, and intelligent people are at work turning it into an even more attractive place than before.

In spite of all of that, winter is desperate, with many dark and dreary days. In Mary’s frame of mind it is important that I be here, especially with the children gone so much. I know I am rambling on, but it is so difficult to just come out and say I am not coming “home” at this time. Perhaps by spring.

Margo’s tears, when she was allowed to read her parents’ letter, ran like rain, in the privacy of her own room. And they increased, if that were possible, when she opened the small, sealed note included for her.

Dear Margo:

By now you’ve read the letter trying to explain why I cannot come back at this time. You cannot understand how torn my heart is, wanting to be with you and needing to be here. Somehow we’ll both—you and I—get through this long,
hard winter; and spring, God willing, will find my darling girl in my arms again.

Spring, with its promise of so much, didn’t live up to expectations where Kezzie was concerned. The next letter was from Angus.

I regret to inform you that Mam (Kezzie) had a very bad fall on the ice shortly after the new year and has not healed well. Perhaps it is rheumatism that has set in, or perhaps the hip was more severely damaged than we knew and has not healed right. At any rate, she is in no condition to travel, though the train has made it to our area at last and is a great boon to industry and trade as well as travel.