by Ruth Glover
“He—Robbie—is to marry . . . someone else.”
Lydia’s eyes widened, but without saying anything she guided Tierney to a chair at the side of the kitchen table, handing her a nearby serviette that she had been going to toss into the laundry. Tierney took it gratefully.
There were a few quiet moments as Tierney mopped her eyes and drew several more deep and shaky breaths. Lydia, standing at her side, waited patiently.
Lydia wanted Tierney to be able to talk, but to pry was not in her. So, “I’m sorry,” she said gently, leaving the way open if the girl cared to confide in her, but asking no questions.
“It’s his neighbor, Alice—”
“Alice Hoy, of course,” Lydia supplied and was not surprised. Deaths and remarriages, on the prairie and in the bush, were a way of life. Mates died, and the remaining partners turned to anyone who was available, especially if there were children. Barnabas Hoy had died a few weeks ago; Rob Dunbar was near and, everyone had supposed, available.
“Aye, Alice. With two bairns. Robbie is willin’ . . . is willin’,” the tears threatened again and were choked back. “Robbie is goin’ to marry her and raise her two boys.”
It’s her land, of course, Lydia said to herself. He wants her land.
“You mustn’t blame Robbie,” Tierney said, and though it was a generous thing to say, the need to say it made it pathetic.
“Y’ see, he issna promised to me,” her lips explained.
But I was promised to him! her heart cried.
And she had thought he was promised to her. The bonds between them had been that tight, that solid, that real.
Lydia was wise enough to offer no platitudes. Nothing like “You’ll feel better in the morning,” “He’ll think it over, and things will change,” “Alice won’t hold him to it, now that you’re here, if he’ll explain.”
Neither did she—wise, wise woman—offer the dreadful consolation of the truth that Alice Hoy had not long to live, and then—
Still, later, when she was in bed, wrestling with heartbreak and trying to accept it, it was that thought—that Alice was not long for this world—that kept occurring to Tierney, troubling her greatly.
Robbie—with face averted and obviously shame-faced—had brought up that very thing.
“Tierney,” he had said, having seen her first look of disbelief turn to dreadful realization, her astonishment to anguish, “she—Alice, that is—canna live more than a few months, a year at the most. She’s told me that hersel’. Then,” though his eyes couldn’t meet hers, he said it; doggedly he said it: “Then we could marry. Then, Tierney, I can offer you a decent place to live, a working farm, and—”
“And do ye think I care aboot all that!” Tierney had cried, breaking into Robbie’s words almost with horror. “Dinna say sich things! Dinna think them!”
“Tierney,” he had said then, taking her hand in his and speaking pleadingly, “I had no idea you were anywhere on the continent. As far as I knew, we’d niver see each other again.”
Tierney knew it was true. Still, no matter where he was or how long it would be until she might hear of him again, her heart had been irrevocably given to Robbie Dunbar. And his heart, she had thought with every fiber of her being, had been pledged to her.
“Robbie,” she said, “I think I could bear it better if you were to tell me you were in love . . . I could understand that. But this—this cold-blooded marryin’ for what you can git out of it—”
“It’s not like that, at all, at all,” Robbie defended quickly. “She needs me, Tierney; dinna y’ see the difference that makes?”
“Are there not many bachelors lookin’ for wives? Isna it a well-known fact that there’s not nearly enough lassies to go aroun’? Why ye, Robbie?”
“Why not me? I’m the lucky one,” Robbie said and couldn’t keep the note of triumph from his voice. “Think on’t, Tierney! Jist a few months, a year maybe, and then I’ll be a landowner of some account. What an opportunity! Think on’t, Tierney! Did ever sich a chance come along in a thousan’ years?”
And Robbie gave Tierney’s hand a little shake, his eyes alight with his great good fortune and his tone pleading with her to understand, to be glad for him.
Tierney’s eyes, in the fading light, were becoming large and shiny with her effort to hold in the storm of tears that threatened. But she knew, if she gave in to it, Robbie’s arms—his dear arms—would go around her, and she would be lost.
“Ah, Robbie,” she said, in a low voice, “what am I supposed to do now? Stan’ by and see you—” her voice thickened and her tone wobbled, and sure enough, Robbie’s arms came out toward her.
Quickly Tierney stepped back. One thing she knew: Robbie Dunbar was pledged to someone else; he was not free to take her or anyone else in his arms.
“Don’t, Robbie,” she said quickly, stopping him. “Dinna y’ see, your arms are not mine anymair. I canna coom into them—”
“Tierney,” Robbie pleaded in a low voice, “it’s not a love match atween Alice and me. There’s no love atween us. In fact,” even in the dim light she could see the color mount in his sunburnt cheeks, “it’s t’ be a marriage in name only. Tierney, do y’ understand what I mean?”
It sickened Tierney to even think on the subject. Alice—ill and dying, and Robbie planning—na na, it was not to be countenanced, what he was explaining.
And that’s what she finally managed to say: “Na na, Robbie. I canna let y’ talk this way . . . I canna even think on sich a thing.”
Robbie looked miserable. “Please, Tierney,” he begged earnestly, “please wait for me. It won’t be long. You’ll be busy workin’ for the Blooms for a while, y’ need to keep your part of the terms y’ made with them. We’ll jist be a few miles apart . . . we’ll see each other often.”
“Nae, Robbie!” Tierney cried, “I couldna stand it! We’ll not—”
“Will ye think on’t? Promise me ye’ll think on’t, Tierney, and wait and see. Please, lass!”
Thoughts and emotions whirled through Tierney’s head, thoughts of good sense and proper procedure, emotions of pain and longing and desire.
“When, Robbie? When is this weddin’ to take place?”
“No date is set,” Robbie replied. “She’s no more anxious for it than I am. Her husban’ has been dead less than two months, after all. As long as she feels she can keep goin’, we’ll carry on as we have, me doin’ the chores, helpin’ with the boys, helpin’ with the hoose when she can’t do it.”
A spasm of pain crossed Tierney’s face. It was all too personal, too intimate, to think about—Robbie and someone else keeping house!
“I’d like you to meet her, Tierney,” Robbie said now. “You’d see what I mean. After all, you can’t be jealous of a . . . a shadow. An’ that’s about all there is to her now. You’d like her, Tierney. I think it would help, to meet her. Would you? Would y’ let me take you over there someday, to meet Alice and the boys? See the place? Help me dream, maybe?”
It had a sick sound to it. Something in Tierney rebelled at the very thought of what Robbie was describing so earnestly. But Robbie!—hadn’t she promised to follow him to the ends of the earth? And wasn’t he worth any price to have, at last, as her own? Would a few months matter? A few vows spoken but soon obliterated by death?
“I’ll see, Robbie,” was the best she could promise.
Then, with the long-checked tears threatening to overflow at last, she had turned away, picked up her skirts, and run toward the house—and Lydia.
Lydia’s last words, before Tierney went upstairs, were wise ones: “We’ll pray with you, lovey. We’ll pray, and it’ll work out right, you’ll see.”
Tierney, so recently come to the One who invited, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” knew she should do just that; it was what her heavy-laden heart cried out to do.
“Lord, help me!” The timeworn plea, so simple and so full of unexpressed meaning, came from a h
eart that felt the better for having uttered it. Tierney, so new to praying, even newer to believing, did her best to “cast her burden” on the Lord.
On the buggy ride home, Rob Dunbar found himself drenched with sweat, though the evening was cool. With no one to hear, he groaned. What a fix to be in! Had he reached Tierney with his explanations, his pleas? Had he helped her see the reasonableness of his argument? If not, there was nothing to be done but try again, for he was irrevocably committed to the plan as he outlined it to her.
Oh, he might have backed out, explaining about Tierney and helping Alice find another man, capable, and willing to take on the marriage and the boys for the prize offered—the Hoy homestead. It would have been a bit embarrassing, perhaps, for the widow who had not found it easy to approach him. But she was desperate; she would have no other choice but to find a substitute if he, Robbie, backed out.
But the homestead! A neat, lumber-built house of five rooms—three down, two up—a roomy barn, two small granaries, chicken house, coop for other fowl, shed. As for stock, Barnabas Hoy had assembled a fine team, a riding horse, five cows with three of them calving this spring, a bull . . .
Counting these assets over and realizing how easily they might slip away from him, Robbie’s sweat increased. He had to, he just had to persuade Tierney. To know that she was waiting for him would see him through these next months, would lend strength for his weary days, would supply purpose for all of it.
How great she looked! How his heart had leaped to see her! His feelings—other than sympathy—toward Alice had never been involved; it was strictly a business arrangement. His heart, now as ever, was fixed on the Scottish lass of his choice—Tierney Caulder, once lost to him and now so miraculously restored.
“Wait for me, Tierney, lass,” he muttered now and turned his thoughts toward the material things he would be able to give her. As always, when he thought of this opportunity to gain new acreage, his heart leaped.
Had it leaped more for Tierney or for the land? he wondered, briefly, and a trifle uncomfortably.
He had barely unhitched and cared for the horse when Allan arrived, on his way home from the Hoy place and evening chores.
“You can have it!” he said disagreeably. “Thass a lot of work over there, Robbie!”
“It’ll be easier when I get all my belongin’s over there,” Robbie answered. “There won’t be all this traipsin’ back and forth.”
“She looked bad tonight, Rob.”
“She does, at times. She’s fatally sick, y’ know.” Robbie was defensive, for some reason.
“Nice lady,” Allan said, “but ye wouldn’t catch me takin’ on sich a job, thass for sure.”
“Nae, and ye’ll end up wi’ yer original quarter section, and thass all,” Robbie said, still belligerent, though he didn’t know why.
“But happy. I’ll be happy, Rob. You got yoursel’ a problem, thass for sure. Alice and the land on one hand, Tierney on the other. Think ye can pull it off? How’d it go tonight, anyway?”
“It went a’reet. She’ll wait,” Robbie said more confidently than he felt. “Tierney’ll wait for me. You’ll see.”
“But are ye breakin’ her heart, lad?” Allan asked keenly.
“It’ll all coom right, when the land’s mine; you’ll see,” Robbie insisted, closing the barn door behind him and turning toward the cabin, Allan following, and Whiskers at his heels.
“Gowk!” Allan muttered and marched off toward home.
With his books and papers spread around him on the old oak table that occupied the center of the room—a contribution of someone in the Bliss congregation—Parker Jones dropped his head on the pages of the open Bible and groaned.
So often, searching for something to bring to his people, he found his own soul being exercised and corrected. Today was such a time it seemed.
Reading the sixth chapter of Second Corinthians, Parker had been contemplating a portion of the moving sixteenth verse: “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It should have been heartwarming . . . it would be good for the people. But Parker, in considerable turmoil, was in need of something pointedly reassuring regarding his private battle.
Perhaps it was because he was feeling a bit anxious about a certain young lady who had appeared on the local scene and the impact she was having on Bliss in general, and him in particular. Perhaps, feeling uncomfortable, he wanted comfort; perhaps, feeling uncertain, he wanted approval.
As his eyes ran over the chapter, his attention was caught and held by something far different: “Giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God . . .”
Oh, oh! The affirmation that Parker needed seemed questionable in light of this verse. Always fighting a battle concerning his worthiness anyway, and now uneasy about something in regard to that new young woman Vivian Condon—Parker found his eyes settling rather apprehensively on additional verses in the same chapter. In their light, was he, could he claim to be what he desired above all: “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed”?
The Word seemed clear as it outlined what was expected of a minister of God, and as he read it, the feeling of insufficiency that troubled him in the best of times now beat a drumroll in his heart. But he read on: “. . . approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities—”
Better, much better, he thought cautiously. Here he qualified, undoubtedly so. Afflictions, particularly physical afflictions, had been few; what there were, he had borne with fortitude. As for necessities, he certainly qualified; the life of a bush pastor was one sacrifice after another. Hadn’t his few white shirts, laundered week after week and worn continually, begun to show wear? Hadn’t Sister Dinwoody, just the other day, offered to “turn” the collars and cuffs for him? Weren’t the pants to his one good suit beginning to bag at the knees? Didn’t he eat his meals mainly at the doled-out generosity of his parishioners? Didn’t he subsist, at times, on a diet of beans and oatmeal and pancakes?
“. . . in distresses, in stripes . . . in tumults, in labors—” Now, finally, Parker could draw a deep breath of relief. All these things he was faithful in, or would be, if called upon to so endure.
But there was more: “. . . in watchings, in fastings—” Yes, Lord, yes, he agreed quickly—some watchings, some fastings.
“. . . by pureness—” And now again, arrows of uncertainty struck his sensitive spirit. How pure? Parker groaned again; sometimes he wished he weren’t so introspective.
Going on—“. . . by longsuffering . . . by evil report and good report—” I’ll suffer long, and gladly, he cried silently, and do it patiently. But—evil report? Lord, let there be no evil report!
Parker knew that his life, words, and actions were under the intense scrutiny of the entire community; he guarded his reputation as his very life.
When women of the parish stopped by the parsonage, coming inside, perhaps to leave their “offering,” he always saw to it that the door was kept discreetly open. And if there needed to be a conversation of any length, they stepped outside, onto the small porch. Parker deemed it a wise thing to do.
This rule applied even to Molly, especially to Molly, for the eyes of the congregation, though turned on the couple with a certain tolerance, were keen, too, and ready to condemn any indiscretion. Molly was as aware of this as he and played by the rules. Even on their walks, though there might be a discreet holding of hands, further intimacies were curbed, all for the sake of the congregation who looked to him as their spiritual example. Only in the confines of the Morrison home were the young couple allowed any semblance of intimacy; and even there it was always with prudence.
Parker Jones was a cautious man, and though Molly Morrison was all his heart longed for or desired, something restrained him and kept him from doing more than talking in generalities about marriag
e plans. Molly, sensitive to his hesitation, controlled her natural tendency to impatience, and waited. The good people of Bliss, imagining their pastor was near to finding a wife, which the Bible called “a good thing,” waited tolerantly. And, through it all, the proprieties were observed.
Yes, a good report was important.
But Vivian—usually managing by some means or another to make Parker feel like a perfect stick—had, this very day, breezed past him after knocking at his door. She had sailed, uninvited, into the house, laughing, tossing her head as she left him standing at the entrance feeling like a stiff and stilted theologian rather than a living, breathing male.
Once inside, Vivian had removed her short cape and made herself at home, demanding a cup of coffee. Before Parker—having entered the house reluctantly—could do more than clear his throat and begin an explanation of why she would have to leave, Molly had showed up. And left again, almost as summarily! How awkward it had all been! No wonder, Parker thought now, he was uncomfortable in his spirit.
He read on: “. . . as deceivers, and yet true—” Was there such a mix in himself?
“. . . as chastened, and not killed—”
Chastened indeed. Sometimes he thought it would be better to be killed outright than suffer the pangs of chastisement.
Parker hurried on and felt his battered spirits lifting a trifle as he came to “as poor, yet making many rich . . .”
How apropos for a bush pastor. Hadn’t Brother Dinwoody, just last week, assured him that the sermon was enriching? The dear people of Bliss were kind and responsive to his sermonizing, urging him on with hearty amens, shaking his hand warmly at the close of each service, and “God-blessing” him faithfully. Yes, he dared to believe that not only his sermons, but his very presence in the barren homes of Bliss, brought a measure of enrichment.
Parker continued to read: “. . . as having nothing—” He turned his eyes from the Book in front of him with its curiously timely applications to himself and looked around his living quarters.
