by Ruth Glover
“That’s true; she isn’t cooperating in any way,” Dr. Blake confirmed. “She just lies there, silent, and growing weaker by the hour.”
“Those bright cheeks—they’re not a good sign, it seems to me,” Charlotte offered. “And though her face is pale otherwise, her eyes glitter. But it’s an unhealthy glitter.”
“Too bright of eye, too brilliant of cheek,” Dr. Blake agreed. “It’s not the bloom of health. You knew, of course—have known for years—that her lungs are involved. Her hopes, her excitement about a new life, infused her with an energy that was false. But this blow she suffered—it has swept away all pretense at normalcy. She’s sunk back, and ever further back, into what we call—”
“Pining sickness,” Kerry supplied abruptly.
“I beg your pardon?” Dr. Blake said, startled.
In response, Kerry quoted a Scripture learned long ago and hidden in her heart ever since, a portion of the Bible that seemed to her to be sadly fitting now: “‘I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness.’”
“That’s Bible, Doctor,” Charlotte explained. “Kerry has this way of resorting to Scripture when greatly moved, or when nothing else will do—”
“Pining sickness?” the good doctor repeated. “I never heard it explained like that, but I believe she’s described it very well.”
“The question is,” Charlotte faltered, “can one die of pining sickness?”
“I never heard it diagnosed as the cause of death,” Dr. Blake said thoughtfully, “but pining . . . grieving . . . can take the heart out of recovery. But the really fatal thing, you must remember, is the disease that’s eating at her lungs. I know of no cure.” The doctor spoke heavily but honestly.
“Tell me, Doctor, could she have gotten well if she had gone West? Could that have worked a cure?” Kerry spoke tersely, as if much depended on the answer. “If so,” she continued, wrath building, “Connor Dougal—never will I forget that name!—is personally to blame for Franny’s illness, and I’ll hold him responsible if she dies!”
“We’ll never know, of course, whether carrying out her plans, going West, might have worked a cure. But certainly it could have lengthened her days. Contentment is a great healer.” The doctor’s voice trailed away. It was supposition, pure supposition, and he was, after all, a man of science.
“And her recovery now depends on her incentive to live and get well,” he added finally. “The human will is a marvelous thing, a powerful thing, more so than we understand. Someday we’ll be better trained to handle these body/mind illnesses. Until that day, we do the best we can. And the best we can do now is to make Frances comfortable, care for her tenderly, and be prepared for the . . . inevitable.”
The inevitable. It had an ominous, a final sound. Kerry could not settle for it.
Back to the sickroom Kerry went to do what she could, though half sick herself with the despair that ate at her heart. Having little or no memory of her mother and many unpleasant memories of her father, Kerry deemed Frances the dearest person in the world to her, and now she was pining away before Kerry’s eyes.
As Kerry sat by the sleeping invalid, waiting for—she knew not what, memories thronged her mind, memories that took her back to the day of her introduction to Maxwell Manor and Frances Bentley.
Even in those days Franny had not been well. But she had rallied and strengthened, and ten years had passed during which she enjoyed fairly good health. Recalling those early days and her own precocious ways, Kerry smiled—sitting there by the sickbed—thinking of her own childish ignorance, shyness, and boldness. Her boldness, then as perhaps now, was ever a means of covering up the shyness.
There was no other way she could account for the courage that had prompted the first rush of verses as she met the Maxwell household, and Franny in particular. A classic example was her effort to describe her immediate fascination with Franny, calling forth soulful descriptions such as, “Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.”
From her sickbed Franny had squeezed Kerry’s hand and laughed her delicious little laugh, captivated by this refreshing child. Never had the small Kerry had such an appreciative audience.
Kerry remembered now that she had followed up that particular quotation with a question, asking, “Why did she ravish him with one eye? What do you suppose was wrong with the other eye? Once I had a pink eye, and I could hardly keep it open. Do you think the bride had a pink eye? Whatever it was, the bridegroom loved her anyway. Do you know he thought her hair was like a flock of goats? I’m sure he meant something nice, don’t you? Maybe he just didn’t have a good ’magination.”
“Well, little one,” Franny had said through a mist of tears, “you have enough ’magination for all of us.”
“I ’magined sometimes that Papa married Miss Perley or maybe some beautiful lady who was much kinder, and we got us a house, and there was a garden, and a cow to milk, and chickens to give us eggs. Once when we were in our ears in the rent, Papa boiled eggs for our supper in a can in the fireplace.”
Here Kerry had paused and asked her inevitable question after she had said things too wise and too wonderful for her own understanding: “How could we be in our own ears, do you think?”
“I think you mean ‘arrears,’ Kerry. That means you were behind in paying your rent.”
“Oh that,” she had answered with relief. “I thought it was something like the pink eye, only in the ears. I only had a pink eye one time, but we were often in our ears—a-rrears. It seemed to make Mrs. Peabody crabby, so I suppose it was a bad thing.”
“You won’t have to worry about things like that anymore, wee Kerry. Uncle Sebastian and Aunt Charlotte will take care of you from now on. It’s the hope of all of us that you’ll be very happy with us. We’ll be great friends, you and I.”
“I had a friend. Her name is Cordelia. She called me bad names; sometimes she called me a lumpy toad. Once it kindled my wrath, and I called her ‘ye generation of vipers.’”
That was when—on the very first day at Maxwell Manor—Franny had put her arms around the small girl and hugged her close. Remembering, Kerry’s purple-black eyes filled with tears, reminding her that Franny, seeing Kerry’s tear-filled eyes for the first time, had said they looked like “pansies in a spring shower.” Franny had brought the starving little heart love, acceptance, and understanding.
The flooding memories were too much. Sitting at the bedside of this dear one, Kerry’s eyes brimmed, and the tears—of remembrance, of happiness, of pain—ran over.
Perhaps it was her small sniff; perhaps it was because of her movement to capture a dainty handkerchief from her skirt pocket that roused the sick girl. But Kerry felt her free hand clasped in slim fingers and now, as in earlier days, a flood of warmth and protection swept over her. Franny and Maxwell Manor had been her safe haven.
“Oh, darling—you’re awake,” she responded now, blinking through tears.
“Mustn’t cry, Kerry . . . not worth it. Remember . . . remember always . . . that you’ve brought me, all of us . . . much happiness. Never change, Kerry.”
Kerry’s tears were flowing in earnest now. “Please, Franny, get well again! Just think about getting well and strong again! Please, dear. . . .”
Franny’s frail hand gave Kerry’s a little shake. “Aunt Charlotte,” she whispered. “Please get Aunt Charlotte . . . I need to see her . . . alone.”
Kerry flew to find her aunt, and for the remainder of the day, the sickroom was off limits. Kerry didn’t know what went on there, but early in the evening Gladdy came to get her, whispering, with tears, “Your aunt says you are to come. You and your uncle—I’ll go get him.” And Gladdy sped off, her hair flouncing madly and her tears flowing freely and making a path through the freckles, those that remained since childhood and would remain with her always.
At the midnight hour it was all over. Franny was at rest, forever at rest.
Gladdy helped a weeping Kerry from the room, t
heir tears and sobs mingling. Straightening herself, supporting herself with one hand on the wall in the hallway, Kerry spoke through stiff lips:
“That man—that Connor Dougal—I’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do, and I’ll make him pay!”
It was a vow that sustained her through the next few days, through the heart-wrenching drama of the funeral, through the dark days that followed.
Keren,” Charlotte said, and her nostrils flared and her nose tip pinked—a double . . . no, a triple whammy. Not only the flaring nostrils and the pinking nose but the use of her full name should have alerted Kerry to the opposition she was up against. And normally she would have paid strict attention to the signs of disapproval.
“Keren!” Charlotte said again, adding another powerful missile to her arsenal of weapons: It was her tone of voice—like a clap of thunder on a pleasant day, like the snap of a whip on a defenseless back, like doomsday to a condemned creature.
Not for years had Kerry heard Aunt Charlotte’s voice resound with such terrible possibilities for disfavor and discipline as it did now.
“Keren! You are to put such foolish nonsense out of your head this instant!”
And though Kerry quaked—Aunt Charlotte was a formidable opponent—she was not shaken from her position.
“Oh, Aunt Charlotte! Please see it my way! Please . . . my mind is made up, you see.”
“Well, just unmake it!” Charlotte snapped. “You are not, by any stretch of the imagination—and you’ve always had more than your share—going to this outlandish place named Bliss but probably meaning misery! If I have to lock you in your room, you’re not going, and that’s all there is to it!”
Lock her in her room indeed! Kerry—young, strong, vital—looked at Aunt Charlotte’s stooped figure, too heavy, too flaccid, too infirm to follow through on her threat, and felt that a pert “You and who else?” would be an appropriate answer.
Kerry had never been a sassy child, and she wouldn’t be a smart-aleck adult. Aunt Charlotte had been too good to her, too kind, to hurt her feelings. Kerry feared it would be upsetting, even traumatizing, to Aunt Charlotte when she realized that all her threats, her pleadings, her arguments, would make no difference in her niece’s decision.
And so she answered as gently as she could while still standing firm.
“Aunt Charlotte, I didn’t even mention it to you until all my hesitations had been settled and my mind made up. I didn’t arrive at this decision easily. But it wasn’t long after Franny’s death that I came to the awareness that I would never have any peace until I made that false wretch—that Connor Dougal—pay for what he did to her. I can’t rest until I do.”
“But that’s terrible, Kerry! It’s retaliation, it’s revenge, and you of all people should know what God thinks of that! He won’t smile on such an endeavor!”
“It’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as far as I’m concerned. That’s certainly scriptural.”
“But it’s not what Jesus taught! He said if someone smites you on the cheek, turn the other cheek also!”
“Why, Aunt, you surprise me; I didn’t know you knew any Scripture.” During all the years of Kerry’s references to the Bible, no one had ever challenged her before. This wasn’t surprising, seeing that no member of the family attended church except for the traditional Easter morning service. No, Scripture quoting was the prerogative of Kerry alone. How odd to have her own method thrown back in her face.
Charlotte had the grace to flush; she was well aware that in the area of religious training she had been sadly lacking where the girls were concerned.
“That’s not to say I don’t read the Bible,” she said defensively. “And,” she added pointedly, “the New Testament is clear on loving and forgiving.”
“Are you asking me to forgive that man, Aunt Charlotte? He hasn’t even asked for forgiveness, has he? In fact, that creature doesn’t even know the damage he’s caused. Well, I’m going to see that he knows. I plan to see that he suffers for it.” Kerry was coldly steadfast in her awful purpose.
“No good can come of it, Kerry! Not to him certainly; nor to you.”
“Ah yes! It’ll do me a world of good to see that man hurt as Franny was hurt. It makes me burn whenever I think of his callousness and the unspeakable effect it has had on all of us, Franny in particular. Why should he get away with it?”
“And just how do you plan to carry out this nefarious scheme?” Aunt Charlotte asked with a sigh, capitulating like a burst bubble. She knew her Kerry; Kerry would never have brought her mad scheme this far if she didn’t intend to carry it through.
“That’s a little nebulous right now,” Kerry admitted. “But before I get there I’ll have a plan, you may be sure, and when I get to this Bliss place, I’ll put it into action.”
“Like what, Kerry? Tear his eyes out? Spit in his face? Denounce him as a rounder and a cad?”
“It’ll have to be something painful,” Kerry said decisively. “I wish I were a man in times like this! Obviously I can’t inflict physical damage. I’ll have to do it in another way. But he’ll know it when it happens, and he’ll know why.”
“And then what?” Charlotte asked quietly.
Kerry hesitated. “I don’t exactly know. I suppose I’ll come back here—if you’ll have me.”
“Silly, silly girl, even to ask. This is your home; nothing you can do will change that.”
“Thank you, Aunt Charlotte,” Kerry said a little unsteadily. “You know how I feel about you and Uncle and how much I love Maxwell Manor—it’s been a real home to me.”
“So when will you be leaving this loved home?”
Kerry sighed; it was a heavy burden she had taken upon herself. “Just as soon as all the snow is gone, and that’s not going to be long. I’ll get there at the very beginning of spring, and it will give me several months before snow flies again, when I’ll need to get out. If I don’t, I may not make it until another spring. Can you imagine a worse fate than to be stuck in a backwoods place by the ridiculous name of Bliss for an entire winter? So as soon as carriages roll freely and there’s no danger of the train being held up anywhere, I’ll be on my way.”
“Alone, Kerry? Now here I really must be adamant. It just isn’t done!”
“There are always people going West; perhaps I can latch onto some such group or family.”
The improbability of this eased Charlotte’s mind; it could take a long time. Unless, of course, Kerry, like Franny, turned to the newspaper for help.
The idea had indeed occurred to Kerry. In fact it was only a few days later as she was poring over the Personals in the various newspapers and magazines Gideon purchased for her that her solution came. And from an unexpected source.
Kerry was on the rug in her room, her dark hair escaping the pins that held it up and back and curling in cloudy wisps around her face. A face that, even in early womanhood, retained some of its early waiflike delicacy. Her eyes were blue-black in concentration; her slender body was bent in graceful abandon over the papers spread before her.
Her absorption was broken by a pair of sturdy shoes that came into her line of vision. Gladdy, feather duster under one arm, was standing beside her.
“Whatcher doin’?” Gladdy asked cheekily in the old, long-abandoned manner of speech and the result of the now-absent Miss Beery’s severe insistence on proper speech.
Kerry sat back on her heels, futilely brushing back her straying curls with one hand and giving the hem of Gladdy’s uniform a twitch with the other.
“Whatcher think?” Kerry replied, just as cheekily, happy for an interruption and the chance to change her cramped position.
With the camaraderie that marked their relationship, Gladdy folded her slim length and settled on the floor beside Kerry, duster laid aside, her eyes going to the heap of papers and the tablet that was singularly free of notations.
“No luck?” she asked, while her cornflower blue eyes swept the disarray for clues of some success in t
he search.
Kerry sighed. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow’s batch. . . .”
Kerry was discouraged. If many more days passed and no chaperone was turned up, she might, in a foolhardy move, decide to start out on her own, ignoring protocol and Aunt Charlotte.
But she knew it wouldn’t be wise. Besides—it just wasn’t done!
Except for a few seasons spent at Uncle Sebastian’s summer cottage, Toronto was her world, her safe world. And the Territories weren’t called the Wild West for nothing. Many and lurid were the stories and accounts drifting back to civilization, as alarming as they were attractive.
One woman, in an account Kerry well remembered, reported her first glimpse of the raw settlement where she would be living: “I leaned my elbows on the wooden table in the dirt hut, buried my face in my hands, and sobbed aloud, ‘My God, help me to cleave to thee.’ I could not help it. I felt so lonely, so homesick, so isolated.”
This was the life the homesteaders faced, those who dared leave the populated areas. To strike off into the endless, rolling miles of prairie and beyond took colossal courage—or ignorance. To take a wife, or expect one to follow after, was incredibly audacious. That a woman would consent to go in response to such an invitation was even more mind-numbing.
But, Kerry rationalized, Bliss can’t be all that bad. Not anymore. Surely the worst days are over. If Connor Dougal’s letters—she had read all of them, going through Franny’s things—were to be believed, his house was comfortable and attractive in its bush setting, his crops were thriving, his future was challenging. Why then should doubts nibble away at the edge of her mind?
But whatever the hardships, Kerry was determined to confront them. The trouble was confronting them alone.
And so she heard Gladdy’s next words with more excitement than surprise, though she was indeed surprised.
