Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (15 page)

The firstcomers settled on the east bank of the Saskatchewan River’s south branch; eventually the train track reached them—a tremendous advantage that caused the east bank people of the little community, which was called Saskatoon, to rejoice over their rivals on the west bank, who were trainless—only a ferry accommodated their needs. Eventually the railway company moved the station to the west bank, a dismaying turn of events for the east-bank people. Now a bridge, being imperative, was
built, and the people of both sides drew together in their objectives. A new name was suggested: Nutana.

Nutana, it was said by the Temperance Colony agent who suggested it, was an Indian word meaning “first born.” But none of the Cree and Sioux of the area ever knew or used the word. The man was suspected of having an overactive imagination; Nutana’s subsequent use became limited to a small area, and
Saskatoon
was officially chosen as the town’s name.

“Weel, it’s no Aberdeen,” Anne said, staring out of the grimy train window, “but it’s better than what we’ve been seein’ across the prairies. Oh, that we could stay here!”

Missing the hills of home, Tierney responded with a shake of the head, “This is too flat for my likin’. Way too flat—”

“Not really,” someone corrected her. “It just seems that way. The prairie has folds and creases and the likes of that, but yes, it seems as flat as a table from our viewpoint.”

Tierney continued her remark for Anne alone: “Oh, that we would end up whaur there’s braes and trees!”

“Is it Binkiebrae, then, that ye’re longin’ for, Tierney?” Anne asked kindly.

“Na, na, it’s no’ that. I guess I’m jist jittery aboot everythin’ being sae new and strange. Nae, I’d no’ go back, e’en if I could. ’Tis jist . . .” In her depth of feeling, Tierney had slipped back into the old, unacceptable way of speech. Ishbel Mountjoy wouldn’t have approved.

Anne laid a comforting hand on her friend’s arm. “I’m the same, Tierney. But I think we’ll feel better when we’re in our new places, and workin’. We’re tired to death of this sittin’ around, wonderin’-like.”

What a relief it was, and had been all across an ocean and halfway across a continent, to have the British Women’s Emigration Society in charge. Here was a strange town called Saskatoon and/or Nutana, growing to lusty maturity; here was a river
called “Kis-is-ski-tche-wan,” or “the river that flows rapidly,” which, despite its shallow depth—seldom more than twelve feet—ran its tawny waters treacherously across the territory in a giant Y, to empty eventually into Hudson Bay. Both town and river, and much, much more, were as removed from the old world as the moon from the earth, in the minds and thinking of three uneasy girls. They felt quite cast adrift, though they had contracts in their purses and assurances concerning the employers that had been alerted to meet them.

Tierney, Anne, and Pearly made their lone way from the train—having left the Toronto office and Ishbel Mountjoy far behind—under the impression that a representative would be awaiting them.

Standing on the station platform, with busy life and busy people swirling around and past them, Pearly, Anne, and Tierney came to the chilling realization that, in fact, no one seemed to be looking for them.

After ten minutes or so of looking this way and that, hoping to catch the eye of someone on the search for someone else, they looked at each other with wide, questioning eyes. Had they misunderstood?

“Now what?” Anne asked uncertainly.

“We’ll have to ask around,” Tierney said with more calmness than she felt. “Stay here,” she ordered, but when she looked back it was to find Pearly and Anne on her heels, as close as possible, and all three girls made their way through the crowd, which was, it seemed, thinning out.

Approaching the ticket window, Tierney asked, bravely, “Do you know the location of the British Women’s Emigration Society?”

“Sure don’t,” a thin faced, thick-mustached individual said cheerfully.

Perhaps the girls’ faces reflected their worry, for the man said, “Wait a minute, and I’ll ask around.”

Coming back to his window, he said, “Nobody thinks there’s such a Society here, with an office, that is. Man back there says
he’s acquainted with its work, and young ladies pass through here all the time. I suggest you go to the nearest hostel and wait. You may be sure we’ll send on anyone coming here to meet you.”

The girls were hesitant, either to respond or to move.

“Tell you what,” the man said kindly, “I’ll get a horse cab to take you—it isn’t far, but you might miss it, walking. And then, there’s your baggage. So, see, you’ll get to the hostel and be fine there. Man back there,” and the speaker jerked his thumb toward the back of the station, “says it happens all the time. Says everybody but me knows about the domestics coming here regularly. Says they’re going to change the entire northwest. Now
that
I’ll believe when I see it.”

The man guffawed and continued, “I’m a newcomer myself; that’s why I didn’t know, you see. But I ain’t seen anything changing around here so far, except to get busier and wilder. Thought I’d make a change in it myself when I arrived; never thought I’d end up working in a train station. But soon’s I get my feet under me—”

His audience’s faces beginning to look strained, the man checked himself, called a youth, explained the need for a cab, and bade the reluctantly departing girls good-bye.

“You’ll have to share a room,” the clerk said shortly thereafter, when the girls had reached the hostel, as he studied the register in front of him. “And a bed.”

“Do you ever have other girls from the British Women’s Emigration Society?” Tierney, as spokeswoman for the trio, asked. “I mean, is there a chance someone will think to look here for us?”

“Oh yes. Yes, we have the Society’s girls come here looking for someone, and yes, someone comes looking for them. Usually it’s the family they’re to work for. I suppose anyone driving in this far, looking for a domestic, wouldn’t go back without finding her; it would be a trip—probably a long one—for nothing. If I were you I’d just sit tight and see what happens.”

“Have you had,” Anne asked in a trembling voice, “girls waitin’ and no one comes for them?”

“Well, yes, I guess that’s happened, too,” the clerk said, while the girls drew even closer together in their concern. “But to my knowledge,” he added kindly, “it hasn’t been a problem. It has always worked out, I’m sure. You just arrived, didn’t you? Perhaps you need to give it a little time—”

“Well,” Tierney, the brave one, asked, “what did they do in sich a circumstance, the lassies left waitin’?”

“They went out and found work, I suppose. There’s plenty of work, never fear. Some stay here at the hostel even when they’re working. You can do that, you know. That is,” he quickly reminded them, “if you have money. Fact is, we have such a young lady here now; she works as maid at a hotel, I believe. Maybe you’ll run across her and she can give you the particulars.”

Somewhat reassured, Tierney signed the register, took the key, and turned toward the stairs, the girls once again on her heels.

The room was small but clean. There was one narrow bed, at which the girls looked with disfavor. The cots in Binkiebrae had been narrower, but they had been designed for one, not more. As for Pearly, she was accustomed to tumbling five or six in a bed.

“We’ll have to take turns sleepin’,” Pearly offered, though after five nights sleeping on hard train seats, just who would go first and who must wait might be a problem. “I don’t think this bed was meant for more than two people.”

“We’ll manage,” Tierney assured her, feeling weary enough to sleep the night through though crammed together like sausages in a frying pan. “Now, I’m goin’ to take off my shoes, put my feet up, and rest. Maybe later we can find this lass the clerk mentioned and talk wi’ her.”

“Me, too,” Anne sighed, suiting action to words and unlacing her boots.

Off came the shoes and hats, laid aside were the capes and shawls. Each girl splashed cold water onto her face, washed her
hands, grimaced at the weary, rather disorderly person in the mirror over the washstand, and turned toward the bed.

Like spoons in a drawer they lay, too weary to care. Sleep was immediate as the sounds of frontier commerce faded from their ears and the day’s bright afternoon light faded from their eyes.

It was a pounding on the door that jolted them, all three, awake, and brought them to a sitting position. It took each girl a few moments to recollect where she was, and why. But the male voice calling through the door’s thin boards finished the waking process.

“Miss Fraser! Miss Anne Fraser! Is there an Anne Fraser in there?”

Anne’s hand went to her mouth; above it her eyes were wide with terror. A male voice, in a strange place, calling her name with authority—for a moment it seemed that Anne must faint.

“Anne Fraser!”

T
he girls looked at each other, faces flushed with sleep, hair tumbled, ears pummeled with the unexpected, insistent pounding on the door, eyes coming into focus in the small, airless room, the unfamiliar room.

“Anne Fraser! Anne Fraser!”

Tierney took one look at Anne’s horrified face, from which the color was quickly receding, and swung her feet over the edge of the bed.

“Just a moment,” she called out.

Fumbling among the puddle of shoes on the floor at the bedside, Tierney managed to sort out her own and pull them on. Laces hanging, she stood to her feet, trying to bring the whole situation into perspective—sleeping in a strange room . . . someone knocking on the door . . . Pearly looking befuddled with sleep . . . Anne with her hand over her mouth, her beautiful eyes filled with dreadful fear . . . someone demanding entrance.

With a quick instinctive move she brushed her hair back, making a fruitless attempt to tuck it into its accustomed knot on the nape of her neck, straightened her rumpled clothes, left the shoelaces dangling, and stepped to the door vibrating with another barrage.

“Yes? Who is it?” she asked, repeating it when her voice cracked, still heavy with sleep. “Who is it?”

“I’ve come for Anne Fraser. Is she in there? I understand she is. Open the door.”

In spite of Anne’s violently shaking head, Tierney unlocked the door and opened it.

Outlined in the doorway stood one of the most harmless appearing males Tierney had ever seen. Not much taller than she, but twice as wide, he stood with fist upraised, ready to knock again, if necessary, causing Tierney to flinch at first sight. His other hand held his cap, snatched from his head the moment his eyes fell on Tierney. Soft locks of colorless hair fell over his forehead. The face below, as round as a cookie and as innocuous, featured eyes like raisins above cheeks plump and pink under fair brows and lashes. His little mouth, set for another squall, was round and open, perhaps in astonishment.

“Anne Fraser?” he managed, strangely abashed for one who had hollered so manfully but a second ago.

“Na na. And who might ye be, pray tell?”

“Frankie . . . Frank Schmidt. My grandfather is Franz Schmidt; he and my grandmother, Augusta, have a paper here saying a Miss Anne Fraser has been hired to work for them.”

The voice of the young man—for such he appeared to be—was soft enough now that the pounding and calling were over. He struggled to work his hand into his coat pocket—a coat that fit too snugly on his chunky frame—and withdrew a creased paper that he waved with a hopeful expression before Tierney.

Tierney hesitated . . . what should she do? A quick glance back showed Pearly and Anne still perched on the bed, faces turned toward the couple at the door, hair askew, clothes askew, expressions not far different—particularly Anne’s. Though she
had removed her hand from before her mouth, and the dismay was fading from her eyes, Anne was shaking her head rather violently from side to side and her eyebrows were drawn together darkly in an expression of fierce disapproval.

“I tell ye what, Mr. Schmidt; you go doonstairs and wait, and we’ll be on doon jist as soon as we make ourselves presentable.”

The smile on Frank Schmidt’s face was cherubic. “Yah,” he said, “I’ll do that. Good day to you, ma’am.” There was a hint of an accent in his voice, as though he were not too far removed from the old country.