by Ruth Glover
Behind her, Gregor watched in silence, smiling ever so slightly when she made the decision to heed what he had told her. It was a small beginning.
At the stopping place, Ida Figbert knocked on the bedroom door and called, “Gladys, someone to see you.”
To Gladdy’s surprise and to the confirming of Kerry’s suspicions, it was Dudley Baldwin. Standing just inside the kitchen door, cap in hand, he had eyes only for Gladdy McBean.
“Dudley!” she said, surprised. “Was it Kerry you wanted to see?”
“No, ma’am, that is, Gladdy. I wonder if you’d do me the honor,” and his pale, thin face flared red, “of taking a ride with me.”
“Me, Dudley? Are you sure you mean me?”
The more she questioned, the more certain he became. “You, ma’am, that is, Gladdy,” he repeated, his voice firming remarkably.
“Ride?” she said, amazingly thickheaded. “Ride . . . where?”
“Just ride,” Dudley said. “You know—ride out together.”
If Gladdy hadn’t caught on before, the level, half bold look Dudley fixed on her should have informed her. And did, eventually.
When at last she had a glimmer of light on the subject of “riding out” (first cousin to “stepping out,” she supposed), her cheeks flamed. She breathed a faint “Just a minute” and escaped.
Back in their room, with the curious eyes of Kerry fixed on her blushing face, she stammered, “He . . . Dudley, wants me to take a ride with him! Isn’t that funny? He wants to go out . . . riding with me!” And she tried to laugh but managed only tears.
Kerry hastened to put her arms around her, and together they wept a little and eventually laughed a little, but at themselves.
“Silly goose that you are,” Kerry said tenderly. “And why wouldn’t he? Here, tidy your hair and put your hat on. Though I have an idea he’d just as soon you left your hair loose and free.”
With these confusing words in her ears, Gladdy was helped out of the room by Kerry, herded toward the door and outside. Kerry watched through the window as Dudley helped her into the rig, took his place beside her, called “Hup” in a no-nonsense voice, flourished the reins, and curveted off down the road.
Although what happened on that ride was too personal and too precious to share in its entirety, Kerry and Gladdy were good enough friends for the bare bones to be told. Dudley had driven to a spot beside a lake of blue, blue waters, and with the warm spring sun beating down and the blessing of birdsong raining upon them from all sides, had laid bare his heart.
He told her of his plans to move, to leave Bliss for the wilderness beyond. He told her enough about his mother for her to grasp his need and his desperation. He shared his dream of starting over as a homesteader in a new place; he described the probable difficulties of such a move.
“I’m young,” he said, “but no younger than thousands of men before me. I’m not green, as many have been, having helped on the farm all my life. I’m not heading out into the unknown, exactly.” And he told her of Gregor’s tract in the north, and she heard again the singing words “Peace River country.”
“This is the hard part,” he told her, but with enough courage to turn toward her and look her in the eye. Deliberately, he continued, but humbly. “I don’t want to go alone. A man needs a wife. I wonder if you’d dare take a chance on me, Gladdy McBean, and come with me. I know it seems short notice, but others do it and make it work. I can’t promise much, but I can promise I’ll be good to you and look after you the best I can. And . . . I think . . . I think I can promise to love you . . . forever.”
The neglected child who hadn’t felt loved since she left the slums of London and perhaps not then, the little maid who once said she never saw any eligible men except delivery boys, the young woman who had thrown security away for the dangers of the West and an unknown future—should she hesitate now that she was offered a home of her own, a future to work toward, and a love for all time?
Dudley, straight and strong and purposeful, was waiting for an answer. “What do you say, Gladdy McBean?”
Most of this Gladdy relayed to her friend Kerry, in bits and pieces, and between tears and laughter.
“And of course you said—” Kerry prompted at the culmination of this story of the wooing of Gladdy McBean.
“I didn’t have to say a word,” Gladdy said, rosy-cheeked. “I guess my face spoke for me.”
The truth of the matter was that it had indeed spoken volumes, and an elated Dudley had pressed those same rosy-hued cheeks into his rough shirt, looking blindly over Gladdy’s dear head at his future, a future that, for the first time, had all the earmarks of his dreams and more. Bending his head, he kissed her, and it was as sweet to both of them as the seeking honeybees around them could have desired.
And Kerry—would her plans and schemes bring the same light of joy and satisfaction into her eyes? She wondered. For the first time, she wondered.
The remainder of the week was marked by an occurrence of great import to Kerry’s plans; it came about quite naturally. Almost as if it were meant to be, she exulted, and furthering tremendously her scheme to cultivate, capture, and unmask Connor Dougal.
Because some of their luggage had been left in Prince Albert until such time as Kerry felt their stay in Bliss should be permanent enough to warrant carting it out, there were various items she and Gladdy lacked. Needing stationery to continue her written saga of the trip to Aunt Charlotte—who had demanded of her a promise to keep faithfully in touch—Kerry had put on her hat and gloves, picked up her purse, and turned her well-shod feet toward the Bliss store.
How magnificent the sky, how wide and wild the land—“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place.” And here was she, along with a few other puny mortals, nothing more than an ant for significance in the vastness of God’s creation. Shaking off the strange, even frightening, revelation, she strode with purpose toward the store. Ants indeed!
Entering the building, she came from an inner place of hushed reverence and unusual introspection to the restless scurryings to and fro of people harried by the need to store up garner. And more—to store it while the sun shone and the snow and cold had reluctantly withdrawn for a time. Soon they would roar back, recharged and ferocious and bent on mischief.
“Hello, Miss Ferne.”
“Good morning, Miss Ferne.”
It seemed the shoppers had all been in the church service and knew her, though she found it difficult to recall a single face. And then that one face came into her line of vision, and a remembered voice spoke, “Hello again, Kerry.”
It was Connor Dougal. Kerry could only explain her bounding pulse to the satisfaction of coming face-to-face with her opponent.
And what a worthy opponent he was! The little picture he had sent Franny, which was even now tucked in the purse she carried, hadn’t done him justice. It hadn’t shown how tall he was and had only hinted at the broadness of his shoulders; it hadn’t revealed the glints in his earth-colored hair or the depth in his gray eyes; it hadn’t caught him smiling or captured the warmth of his voice. It had been a colorless likeness and not a live, breathing, vigorous male creature. Half panicky at her turn of thoughts, Kerry recognized the trap into which she had been enticed—“It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat”—and made an attempt at rational thinking.
“Connor! What brings you to town on a busy weekday morning?” she asked and found it not difficult to pretend interest, not impossible to smile fetchingly, though unskilled in the art.
“I’m on my way to Prince Albert, actually. Just stopped for mail; thought reading it might shorten the long miles for me. For a few moments I can lose myself to the bush and be back home in Scotland with the family gathered round.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, her mind working furiously. She would go with him! What an opportunity; perhaps a God-given opportunity, though she knew little or nothing of prayer and wasn’t certain that God cared one way or another about her quest for reven
ge. If He did, He probably wished her well and the hypocrite Connor, his comeuppance.
“Do you suppose,” she said, with her sweetest smile, “that I could go with you? Gladdy and I left some of our baggage there because at the time we were not certain just how long we’d be in Bliss. Now that it looks as if we’ll be here at least for a while longer—”
“I say,” Connor Dougal interrupted, “you’re not thinking of leaving us any time soon, are you? You haven’t really experienced bush life, and we haven’t had a chance to get acquainted. There’s the picnic coming up and a few things that might be interesting, even if it is the busy time of the year.”
“I’ll stay, of course, if it is . . . important enough to do so.” And Kerry, to her own shame, lifted a wide-eyed look—which she intended to contain a hidden message—toward the man whom she in her heart blamed for Franny’s death, and for whom she had no other plans than to make him pay.
“We’ll have to see that there is such a reason,” Connor Dougal replied, quietly and quite seriously, and Kerry’s already misbehaving heart seemed to skip a beat. How well her plan was working! “And a trip to Prince Albert might be the place to start,” Connor concluded.
How simple it was, after all! Here, in the bush, where women were as scarce as hen’s teeth, the whole process of getting acquainted—doing it by speaking stilted phrases, going through the motions of Victorian protocol and chaperoned all the while—was dispensed with. Men, like this rugged individual standing before her now, went to the heart of the matter at hand. With chores to do daily and the crop to be brought in before winter, there was no time for dallying. People either made up their mind and married or struggled on alone. Connor Dougal, if he were interested, would waste no time and would expect no coy teasing about the matter. All the better for her plan to be finalized, over and done with before more time was wasted.
All these thoughts raced through her mind as the brief interchange of conversation took place. In spite of heightened color and quickened breath, things are going nicely, Kerry assured herself and turned to go briefly to the stopping place.
“I’m going to Prince Albert with—you know who!” she advised the questioning Gladdy, to be rewarded by a somber look and a shake of the tousled head.
Gladdy had made herself abundantly clear on the subject of revenge. “Forgive and forget,” had been her advice. “The business of living here in the bush is serious; there’s no time and no energy to waste on something that can’t be helped or changed.” And Kerry had frowned.
“Get your ticket,” Gladdy advised now, “and make your plans to leave. If my wedding is delaying you, there’s no need. It will come off as planned, and Dudley and I will be on our way before summer is over.”
Kerry’s eyes glittered. “No way am I leaving until that man knows what he did and how Franny and all of us suffered. No. He’s going to suffer accordingly, and then and only then will I leave.”
“And leave happily, I suppose?” Gladdy said. “Leave ruin behind you and be happy about it? Forget it, Kerry, I implore you!”
“You’re happy. Let me be happy in my own way,” Kerry retorted, then picked up a jacket and purse and turned to leave.
Connor was waiting in the wagon at the gate. Leaping down he helped Kerry put a foot on the hub of the wheel, then swing herself up and over and into the rig. Side by side they sat on the spring seat, riding through scenery as lovely as one might dream up but with the fragrance of the bush to add reality.
“I don’t believe one has a sense of smell in dreams,” Kerry remarked, drawing into her lungs the remarkable mix of flowers, rain-drenched greenery, and much more, all contributing to the uniqueness that was the bush. “If one could bottle this fragrance and sell it, one would be a rich person.”
“You’ve said it well,” Connor Dougal replied. “I’m rich, having it to myself. But I like to think of the fragrance of the bush as the essence of milk and honey. You know the Scripture, I’m sure—‘He hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.’ Could anything be better than that?”
Scripture, being quoted to her? First thing she knew, he would be testifying to her. But this was no time to carp over such annoyances; this was the time to make hay while the sun shone, she thought, pleased with the bucolic observation.
Riding along with the object of her intentions, Kerry was thrilled to her toes with this golden opportunity to exploit the loneliness of this bachelor, winning for herself and for Franny a great victory.
Therefore, she said, “There is more, so much more, to this place than the fragrance. Tell me of your dreams for your place . . . for yourself.”
Connor looked pensive for a moment. “My homestead is my pride and joy, I suppose you’d say. One is bound to be tremendously gratified when land that was overgrown and overrun yields to axe and sickle and grub hoe, when a field is finally planted and a crop harvested. You hold your threshed grain in the palm of your hand, and it looks like pure gold. Your first lettuce for the season, after a long winter, is as beautiful in your eyes as emeralds. Wild fruit, like pin cherries and strawberries, glows like rubies. But there, I grow maudlin in my desire to make you see the benefits and blessings of the bush. If you stayed,” he added, far more serious now, “becoming a full-time resident, you’d need to rely on all the womanhood and strength of character that you have, just to stick out the winters.”
“I’m sure, if the inducement were sufficient,” Kerry said, trying not to speak too archly in her desire to win his attention, “no woman would mind paying the cost, whatever it might be. I’m sure I wouldn’t mind. The attraction of the city seems small in comparison to,” and she flung out an arm dramatically, “all this.”
The trip was shortened by their interest in each other’s stories. Connor listened with sympathy to Kerry’s true account of her early years of deprivation, her rescue by an aunt, and the subsequent happy years. Once or twice she had to catch herself sharply from some reference that would include Franny, or Maxwell Manor, or Aunt Charlotte. She heard the account of his emigration and the hard years of back-breaking labor that had brought him to this day, a landowner and accepted part of the thriving community of Bliss.
Upon reaching Prince Albert, Kerry was dropped off at Pilgrim Boarding House for Men, where she was greeted cheerily, served tea and leftovers from the noon dinner hour, and urged to rest until time to leave. Then, with the remainder of her baggage loaded onto the wagon and the afternoon sun slipping on down toward the horizon, Kerry and Connor began the homeward trek. Happily for them, the year had begun its lengthening of days, allowing for a long evening of light in which to cover the distance home.
It was as a warm dusk settled over the bush, when the birds were muting their daytime chorus to an evening sonata, after the glorious sunset had made conversation, for a while, an interruption, that Connor became serious.
“Kerry,” he said in a tone of voice she had never heard before from any man, at any time, for any reason. Ignorant as she was, and inexperienced, she recognized it for what it was.
“Yes, Connor,” she said softly and explained her rapid heartbeat as anticipation for the playing of the game.
And what a game it was! Almost she could imagine it was real, that she was indeed receiving her first serious attention from a man. She found it natural to let herself revel, in the dimming light, in a sensation as of a warm, enticing, cloudy shawl wrapping itself around her, warming her in its soft webs.
And yet Connor, for all he said, left some things unsaid.
“I’m what is called a bachelor,” he began seriously, yet with a half smile. “And bachelors, everyone thinks, are pathetic creatures. But I’ve not wanted to ask any woman to share my life until I could offer a roof, a good, substantial roof, over her head and the assurance that the worst is over. I’m ready now to settle down, raise a family, build up my farm, and enjoy to some extent the fruits of my labor. I’d be much happier enjoying them with s
omeone.” He didn’t say who.
But Kerry knew. How bitterly she knew! Darling Franny had been his choice at one time! It was only with determination and self-control she kept herself from raking at that handsome countenance, screeching out the anger that smouldered in her heart toward him.
Instead, Kerry fixed her eyes—which she knew were great and dark and long-lashed, perhaps her best feature—on Connor’s face as he talked, turning to face her occasionally, turning his profile at times as though some things were too intimate to share with ease.
“You must see,” he continued, “that it’s not possible to have a girl of your caliber, an available girl, come to the area, without asking yourself if she might be the one. Whether you’d have a chance.”
“Connor,” she said softly into the evening’s hush, broken only by the creak of leather and the thud of horses’ hooves, “you’d have a chance.”
She could hear Connor’s indrawn breath and felt him relax into the seat beside her. Only then did she realize how intensely he had been speaking.
“Well, then,” he said, holding the reins with one hand and putting the other over her own clasped hands, “we’ll just take it from there. We’ll pray about it and take it from there.”
Kerry felt a great wave of disappointment sweep over her. Surely it was because she wanted, above everything, to get this miserable experience out into the open and over. Until Connor Dougal declared love for her, the time for thrusting in the knife had not arrived.
Could the real thing be any sweeter than the remainder of the trip with his hand clasping hers, the moon rising, shedding its gentle light on the scene—two people, alone, moving through the sweet, dark night toward . . . ?
