by Ruth Glover
Robbie thought a moment and then shook his head. “No, I canna think of anybody, but I’ll keep my ears open and let you know if I hear of anyone. Say,” he brightened, “Herkimer just mentioned a fellow who was looking for a homestead at the Lands Office in Prince Albert and thinking he might need to work a while first, just as Ahab has done. Tha’s what Allan and I did, you know, and it was worth the wait, I can tell you.”
The men talked it over, and Robbie promised to follow the lead with Herkimer and get back to Herbert Bloom.
Tierney cleared the table and started the dishwashing, only to have Lydia insist she leave the work and spend some time with her friend from Scotland. Going back into the front room shyly, it was to have Robbie look up and suggest, “Can we take a walk, Tierney?”
“Feel free to,” Herbert encouraged. “It’s not only beautiful over toward the lake but smells good, too.”
Fresh grass, spring flowers, breezes over the rippling surface of the water, all combined to bring forth a potpourri that was unique, calling for deep breathing and happy sighs.
Swinging along at Robbie’s side, Tierney lost her touch of reserve, and soon they were deep in conversation. Robbie must hear how Tierney came to make the change to Canada; Tierney must learn all that Robbie and Allan had done to get their homesteads and settle in. They must each report on letters from home, Tierney relaying whatever James had written her, Robbie with news of his family, and both talking of Binkiebrae and home in general.
“We’ve not given up thinkin’ the whole family will coom over,” Robbie said. “We could put ’em up, Allan and I, atween us. Build on a room or two, if we need to.”
“Your hoosie, Robbie, your very own hoosie! I can hardly wait t’ see inside it.” Truth to tell, Tierney could almost see herself as mistress of it. Dreams do come true after all!
It was then Robbie said, “Tierney,” and if his voice sounded strained she had no reason to notice it; she could barely restrain herself from slipping her arm through his as they walked, or, more daring yet, taking his hand. Modesty prevailed, and she waited for Robbie to make such a momentous decision.
“Robbie . . . do ye remember our farewell, there on the hill? The pain of it, the mortal misery? I said—to mysel’, o’ course—that I’d hae gone wi’ ye anywhere, e’en to the ends of the earth. Anywhere, and yet I couldna follow to Canada.” In her earnestness she slipped into the Scots dialect, forgetting all her efforts to speak more plainly. “And yet, here I am. Dinna see the hand o’ Someone bigger than us in a’ that?”
“Tierney—”
“Oh, Robbie, I’m jist so happy—”
“Tierney!” Robbie spoke, this time, more urgently.
“Aye, Robbie, what is’t?”
“I . . . wanted to tell you aboot my plans . . .”
“And I want to hear. Aye, Robbie, you talk, and I’ll listen.” She was looking at him, contentment on her face.
“Y’ see, I’ve a chance to get more land. Tha’s not easy to do, believe me. I thought I’d have to wait years and years before I had the opportunity. But this land I’m talkin’ aboot is available to me now, and best of all—” Robbie’s face was tight with his concentration, his need to make her understand, “it’s right next to mine. Can you believe that? It seems like the hand o’ fate, or something like that. I can hardly believe it meself.”
“But, Robbie, you can only file for one quarter section of free land, reet?”
“Tha’s what’s so great aboot it—I wouldna have to file for it.”
“Well, what then?” Tierney was clearly puzzled, clearly interested, alert now.
“You see,” Robbie said, speaking quickly, “it’s my neighbor’s land, my neighbor that died just a short time ago. His homestead had been proved up, so it was his own. And his wife’s, I guess you’d say. Well, she’s alone now, an impossible situation; she can’t handle it by herself, no woman could—”
“And you’d take it on for her? But how would that make it your own, Robbie? Or is she wantin’ to sell? Would you have the money to buy it, Robbie?” Tierney was attempting to work this out in her thinking.
“Na na, she dinna wants to sell; she wants to keep it for her boys.”
“Her boys?”
“Two of ’em—Barney and Billy. Just sma’, they are.”
“I guess I don’t understand, Robbie. What else?”
“She’s sick, Tierney. Verra sick.”
“How sick d’ye mean, Robbie? Won’t she . . . get well?”
“Dyin’ sick, that’s how sick.”
“Oh, Robbie!”
“Aye. And she hasna got long to live. And she—Alice, that is—needs someone to take over the farm and to raise the bairns after . . . after she’s gone.”
“Tha’s a big responsibility, Robbie. But we . . . you could do it, for the sake of the farm. Is it settled, then?”
“Aye. It’s all settled. Signed and settled. I’m to do it.”
Tierney drew a big breath. Well! It was a surprise, but nothing she couldn’t handle, for Robbie’s sake.
“You see, Tierney,” Robbie said, staring rather desperately out over the lake, “there’s only one way to do it, if I’m to have the place.”
“Robbie?” Tierney asked slowly.
“Aye. I’m to marry Alice.”
At first Molly was astonished to see the Condon buggy in the parsonage yard, knowing that Beatrice rarely felt up to driving herself around, and that Bly would be in the fields this time of year. Perhaps there was a serious need of private counseling . . .
Vivian! The thought struck, quivered, panged.
Molly’s next thought: What right has she got to be here!
Immediately, shamed, she admitted that Vivian Condon had every bit as much right to be here as she herself did. After all, she confessed reluctantly, I don’t own Parker Jones!
With this thought in mind and determining firmly that she, Molly Morrison, would never, never compete for the attention of any man, even Parker Jones, she urged Kip back, step-by-step, until she was clear of the Condon buggy and could begin a tight turn out of the yard.
Too late. The door, which had been left—discreetly—partly ajar, opened, and Parker Jones, calmly and sedately, stepped outside and called, “Molly! Come on in, Molly.”
“I’m off to the store, Parker,” Molly responded, pulling Kip to a halt. “I’ll stop by on my way back.”
“Molly—please!”
Anyone else, not knowing Parker Jones well, might not have caught the appeal in his voice. There was a definite cry for help in his tone and in his eyes, though his words were ordinary. Caring as she did, there was only one thing to do.
Turning Kip’s head once again toward the hitching post, Molly automatically hauled back on the reins and stared as a superbly fitted and outfitted feminine figure stepped through the doorway to stand by the side of the man.
Not only was Vivian Condon’s ensemble in the latest style—or so Molly supposed, having only the catalog and rare visits to Prince Albert stores to instruct her along these lines—but richly so. Vivian Condon’s clothes exuded affluence; her demeanor was that of a person who considered herself, who knew herself, to be a person of superiority. She was superbly confident.
Molly’s calico, though sprigged with tiny blue flowers, edged with ribbon, freshly laundered and crisp, seemed, in comparison, just what it was—a homemade, second-best dress. And at that moment, particularly, Molly seemed just what she was—a hometown girl. Hometown, perhaps, but never second-best!
In spite of good intentions, Molly found her jaw tightening just a little. With finesse she pulled Kip into place, turned, and reached a small foot below a neat ankle toward the buggy’s iron step, finding Parker at the rig’s side and his hand outstretched to help her down. Unless she was sadly mistaken, there was a look of desperation in his dark eyes.
“The box—” she said, a little breathlessly, and Parker reached to pick it up from the seat of the buggy.
“I�
�m afraid it’s rather shaken up,” she offered as they turned toward the house.
“Molly, Molly,” Parker said, shaking his head and smiling, “when will you ever slow down? It’s a good thing Kip likes to run.”
“He’s lucky he’s not hitched to a seeder this lovely morning,” she answered in her defense. “Maybe he was so thankful, he just stepped out.”
“And maybe you just like to hurry through life,” he said, smiling down at her. “Well maybe not through life,” he amended, “but into it.”
Yes, and eager to get there, she might have responded, recognizing and loving the light in his eyes. But Vivian still lingered on the porch steps, her lips fixed in a half smile that had no humor in it and no welcome.
Nevertheless, “Good morning, Vivian,” Molly said in a friendly manner, first names having been decided upon around the Sunday dining table.
But Vivian was preceding her into the house, and her response, if any, was lost in the rustle of what Molly supposed was the taffeta lining of the four-yard sweep of her skirt.
Sitting in the middle of the table, beside the sack from which it had apparently been removed, was a loaf of bread and a pound of butter, Vivian’s offering and excuse for coming. The incongruity of it—the society belle and the plebeian foodstuff—wasn’t missed by Molly, who might have laughed under different circumstances.
Over the back of a chair, as though she intended to stay a while, was Vivian’s cape of silk brilliantine, its collar trimmed with fine black lace and satin ribbon, and its lining made of changeable silk. A Monday costume! Even Molly’s second-best calico would be changed, as soon as she got home, to something worn and serviceable in preparation for Monday’s laundry, which her mother was sorting even at this moment, while water heated on the stove.
Biting her lip, Molly restrained herself from asking, brightly, of course, “Your Aunt Bea? She’s doing the wash—by herself?”
Immediately stricken, Molly reproached herself: Molly! Behave yourself!
And so she spoke more humbly than was normal, for Molly, and spoke honestly, “You look very nice this morning, Vivian. Are you off to the one and only store of our wee hamlet? Or,” she added, growing more uncomfortable as she saw the long-suffering look on the other’s face, “the mail—I’m sure you are looking for mail from home. We still look forward to hearing from family in Scotland—”
It was beyond her. Somehow, Molly sensed, she was missing the mark, and her attempt at conversation faded away. What a mumble-mouth! And she had dared to think she would make a pastor’s wife!
The day, which had been so bright and full of hope, turned dismal for Molly. She wanted only to get out of there, make her run by the store, get back home in time to help her mother, and find normalcy in her household’s routine tasks.
“Sit down, ladies,” Parker was saying, having deposited the box on his round oak table. “The coffeepot is still on, and I’ll be happy to serve you. I think I have three clean cups here—”
Ordinarily Molly would have laughed good-humoredly at Parker’s often-inadequate attempts at housekeeping, counting the days until she should be in residence to do these things for him, and happily so. But Vivian was seating herself at the side of the table, spreading her skirts with a fine and satisfactory rustle, leaning her chin on her ringed hand, and having every semblance of making herself at home.
What must she think of the rude, two-room house, barely more than a cabin? Most of the furnishings were donated; a few were handmade. The stove dominated the living quarters, as it did in most bush homes where, day by day it ate its way through cord after cord of wood. Even in summer it blazed; not a cup of tea could be made without it. Bread had to be baked weekly or oftener; water for anything and everything was heated either on the top of the stove or in the reservoir at the side.
At the side of the stove were a couple of rocking chairs. The round table, set in the center of the room, was covered by a patterned oilcloth; the cupboards were without doors, and Parker’s skimpy supply of household goods were on open display. A cord across one corner held a couple of tea towels and a dishrag, obviously drying; a few battered pans hung on nails on the whitewashed walls. There were books scattered and piled everywhere. The room beyond was, obviously, the bedroom.
As sharp as Vivian was, there was no way to suppose she hadn’t taken it all in at a glance. Molly watched as Vivian’s eyes turned thoughtfully toward Parker Jones.
Feeling stifled suddenly, Molly wanted to be gone from this young woman’s scrutiny, from her evaluation.
“I really must go—” Molly began her excuse, but realized she wasn’t speaking truth. To feel second rate was one thing; but to dissemble, to be drawn into pathetic untruths, was another thing and quite outside the realm of what Molly would allow of herself. So she checked herself and her stumbling excuse, and tried again.
But neither did she want to put down the other person. So, “It’s wash day,” she began, only to falter again, hesitating on the brink of intimating what any well-brought-up girl should know: Monday was wash day, and washings were a monumental task. Vivian obviously was not involved and apparently not concerned.
“Mum,” she diverted herself into explaining, beginning to perspire, realizing she wasn’t handling the situation well, and feeling the amused eyes of Vivian Condon on her, “is waiting for me to go to the store and bring back some Fels Naptha—”
Fels Naptha! Could anything be more mundane, more uncalled for than a reference to the bar of brown soap that, shaved by hand with a good sharp knife, was added to wash water?
And, sure enough, Vivian’s eyebrows were rising, and her curling lips were asking, “Fels Nap—what?”
Half hysterical—from a mix of emotions, one of which was sheer hilarity at the lunacy of the conversation—Molly caught herself in time to refrain from trilling “tha, tha, tha—Fels Naptha!”
Who could blame Parker Jones if the coffeepot trembled in his hand, and if his usually firm lips threatened to do the same?
“It’s wash day, Miss Condon,” he said hastily. “Even so, Molly, please stay long enough for a cup of coffee? No? Well, here, let me empty the box—”
Boxes were as treasured as paper bags or wax paper or writing paper . . . so many things were in small supply, in the bush, or no supply at all, and were used and reused until every shred of usefulness was wrung from them. Except for that, Molly would have fled the premises. As it was, she waited, carrying on some sort of feeble but safe conversation with Vivian, until Parker had emptied the box of its contents—bread, a pound of butter, enough meat from yesterday’s dinner to make a meal, leftover cake.
“I wish you’d stop a moment,” he said again, and Molly, who knew him well, recognized again the urge in his word.
But the too-patient face of Vivian Condon spoke otherwise; it was obvious she was simply out-waiting Molly.
Molly—if she could help it—would be no hindrance! Molly would do battle for nothing, nor for anyone, even Parker Jones.
“Mum’s waiting,” she said quietly, and Parker Jones, just as quiet, followed her to the buggy.
Helping her up into the rig, untying Kip, and stepping back to her side, Parker spoke in a low voice, “I hoped you’d stay until . . . that is—”
“This is something, Parker, that you’ll have to handle yourself.”
Though much of what had happened inside was laughable—and Molly could feel a sort of hysterical giggle struggling to erupt—still she knew beyond all doubt that it was not her place to rescue Parker Jones from Vivian Condon or any other female.
“But—”
Molly left Parker Jones standing looking after her and had to harden her heart. Much as she wanted to fly to his aid, to clean—as a ruffled mother bird—her nest and make it her own again, she felt it was not hers to do.
Her last glimpse back, as Kip whirled the buggy out of the yard and in the direction of Bliss and the general store, was the face of Vivian Condon in the doorway of the parsonage, a s
mall smile on her lips.
Tierney crept into the house not the same vital, spirited, winsome girl who left it not more than an hour ago with Rob Dunbar. Even Lydia, who knew her very little as yet, could tell something was terribly amiss with her new “help.”
Tierney hesitated inside the kitchen door, still a stranger to the house and its occupants, and uncertain of herself and her responsibilities in this moment. Needing to seek the privacy of her own room, her right to do so was in question. She was, after all, the hired girl, a “domestic.”
Lydia had been hanging up the last damp tea towel. Turning to look at Tierney, her plump face showed its shock. Here was this bright-faced young woman—girl, really, for she couldn’t be more than nineteen—with the happiness blighted from her face, and her lips taut and white. Lydia, a mother and a grandmother, couldn’t let this go, she simply couldn’t.
“Oh, my dear,” she said spontaneously and gently, her loving concern evident in her tone.
It was almost more than Tierney could take and retain her last bit of self-control.
“Ma’am,” she began, and it was a pathetic attempt at normality.
But her new employer’s arms were around her. Her new employer was saying things that only mothers and grandmothers say, or very dear and close friends. It was too much for Tierney. The tears, which had been held sternly in check, spouted and ran.
This is wrong, all wrong! her common sense cried. What would Ishbel Mountjoy say!
To come to a new place, be on the job no more than twenty-four hours, bring your special friend into their midst to be fed, skip doing the cleanup and go for a walk with him, only to come back in a collapse of tears, was most unacceptable. Tierney made a brave but futile effort to get control.
It was the arms of Lydia Bloom that were her undoing; it was the crooning comfort of her murmured words. It was the tender pats on the back. Tierney, taller than Lydia by a good six inches, sagged helplessly against the motherly bosom.
The sound of buggy wheels going past outside, fading quickly away, brought Tierney’s head up. Then, with a desperately white and resigned expression on her face, she took a deep breath, stared over Lydia’s gray head, and spoke.
