Place Called Bliss, A Read online

  “So you started a correspondence—”

  “Not really. His very first letter was a proposal. It was startling, to say the least. But I looked around me—my first husband had died, I was living with my brother and his wife and not too happy about it, and I had no future as far as I could see. The person courting me was a miserable excuse for a man, but my brother was pressing me to get married again. I saw Bela’s letter as an avenue of escape—not a very good reason for marriage, I suppose. But having decided to accept his proposal, I made up my mind to make a go of it and be a good wife, regardless of the price I had to pay.” Cee’s laughter trilled out, happy and free. “Oh, what a price! I gave up nothing, really, and gained so much. And on top of all the blessings Bela brought into my poor, lonely life, there’s this—” And Cee’s hand was placed gently on her rounded waistline.

  Mary couldn’t help it; her eyes misted. “Someday,” she murmured quickly, for she could hear the men approaching, “I want to hear the details of this remarkable love story.”

  “And I want to hear yours,” Cee said, confident that her new acquaintance, so simple and honest and direct, had a love story of her own.

  After Angus and Bela Raab laid aside their wraps, there were the necessary introductions and the seating around the stove—the designated spot for fellowship in any snow-wrapped, bush-bound home—and the subsequent enjoyment of tea and talk.

  The following two hours fled by far too rapidly, a wintry oasis in a long dry spell of meaningful relationships.

  Finally, when Bela’s sigh and glimpse of his pocket watch indicated the time had come to leave, Cee said, with a rush, “Oh, I’ve forgotten my most important part. Is it possible . . . do you think?”

  “Yes?” Mary prompted.

  “When it’s time . . . for the baby . . . would you come, Mary?”

  Mary’s eyes grew wide; perhaps the shadows in them were discerned by the expectant mother, for she said, with a rush, “Am I asking too much? Please . . . feel free to tell me if I should look for someone else. But I thought . . . having two of your own—”

  “Yes,” Mary said slowly, “I’ve had two of my own. But not these two,” and she indicated Cammie and Molly playing quietly nearby. “There was another. . . .”

  Angus’s hand reached for his wife’s as Mary’s tale faltered. “We lost our second child on the trip over. I’m not sure Mary has gotten over the experience. Cameron is ours by love, not birth.”

  “It’s time,” Mary said into the silence that fell with only the popping of the poplar wood to interject sound, “it’s time . . . for healing. I don’t know how much good I’ll be, Cee, but I’ll come and do what I can, and gladly.”

  Obvious relief struggled with uncertainty on Celia Raab’s round face.

  Angus’s words sealed the bargain. “Good girl,” he said quietly to his wife. To his new friends he said, “Get word to us, and I’ll see that Mary gets there. Now, if you are sure you can’t stay for supper—”

  But Bela Raab was rising and turning toward his coat and overshoes; Cee took Mary’s hand in a quick grasp and, smiling, said through tears, “Thank you, my friend.”

  With the cutter once again at the door and Bela waiting, Cee, bundled and swathed, gave the children bearlike hugs and said her good-byes. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned, drew the enveloping scarf away from her mouth, and said: “I almost forgot the best part . . . the best part of my story. It’s about my heritage. You see,” the gray eyes shone, “I’m the child of a King.”

  “A . . . a king?” Mary questioned, clearly surprised, and clearly puzzled by such an amazing confession.

  “By birth,” Celia Raab explained happily. “New birth, actually. I’ve been born again.”

  “Why then . . . why then . . .” Mary whispered, beginning to grasp the implications of what this new acquaintance was saying, “why then, we’re sisters.”

  “Oh, Mary! Have you . . . are you—?”

  “Yes! Yes!” Mary was singing, her joy in her friend more than she had known it would be. “I’m part of the family!”

  In spite of Cee’s girth, the two women wrapped their arms around each other; in spite of Cee’s awkwardness, the two women performed a small jig of pure delight before they stepped apart, Mary’s tears mopped by a corner of the clean apron she had donned and Cee’s tears disappearing into the wool of her scarf.

  “And Bela?” Mary finally asked.

  “Bela, too,” Cee said. “It’s what finally caused me to write and tell him I’d come. He ended his letter, you see, by telling me he was a Christian and had prayed over the whole plan and hoped I was the same, and praying, too. How could I have come, otherwise?”

  After the cutter disappeared, with Mary and Angus and the children waving a shivering farewell from the snowy step, the small house seemed a bright haven to the little family who shut the door on snow and ice that went out across their known world, over the bush, over the silent and frozen lakes and the frozen tundra, to the north pole, and beyond. Here they were safe, here they were content. Here, in this wee spot, their dreams were incubating and, with spring and sun and showers, would blossom into reality.

  Mary chattered on about her new friend, telling as much of Cee’s story as she knew. “To have a friend and not too far away, Angus,” she said, “means so much. And then to know she, too, is part of the family . . .” Starry-eyed with the wonder of it, Mary’s voice trailed off.

  Bela, it seemed, as overflowing in his witness as his wife, had left a small but clear testimony with Angus. On top of all that Mary had shared across the past months, it was all that was needed.

  “Do you think,” Angus asked quietly after the children were snug in bed for the night, “there’s room for one more son in the family?”

  Bowing his head over the oak table, the icicles around Angus’s heart melted in a God-sent chinook that warmed and melted all resistance, and tears—first of repentance and then of pure joy—ran down his craggy Scottish face to be absorbed eventually by that long-suffering apron as Mary wrapped her arms around her husband and welcomed him to the family of God. Now, truly, her heart told her, they would be a close-knit unit. Now they could be the parents they ought to be; now they would be the influence and blessing this new land needed. Yea . . . yes, yes, yes . . . happy is that people, whose God is the Lord .

  Mary’s letter, long unmailed because of many interruptions including storms and birth, was finally to be completed.

  Dear Mam:

  I hope you don’t think we’re dead or, at the best, snowed in. We have been that—snowed in. Thank God for a good woodpile and a fairly well-filled cellar. As I told you, we did a lot of preparing, or as much as time allowed, before winter hit.

  We’re so blessed, Mam. Since my last attempt at writing, more than one significant thing has happened to add to those already considerable blessings. First, Angus found the Lord! That does seem like a ridiculous way to put it, as if the Lord were lost or something. It’s more like the Lord found Angus, for he’s the one who was lost, and the Lord, the Good Shepherd, was the one doing the seeking. It all came about this way.

  It being a long day, with no interruptions, Mary filled the time with writing the details of the Raabs’ introduction into their lives, of learning that Celia was a Christian and her husband, also, of how Bela had quietly dropped a word in Angus’s ear as they visited in the barn and how the Holy Spirit had used it to fan the small flames already ignited and smoldering into a bright flame in Angus’s heart.

  My joy is complete , Mary wrote, trying to express the happiness.

  It seems to me that both husband and wife should believe, truly making them one, and that a father and mother should be of one mind in what they tell their children and how they live before them.

  As for the Raabs, they have become dear and trusted friends. And how we do need one another on the frontier. One never knows when an emergency will arise. Cee Raab is what is known as a mail-order bride, a fascinating story and
one that turned out well. Others, in like situations, find themselves not only married to a stranger but one for whom they have little or no liking, and with whom they have to live in the most close, even most intimate, association. I shudder to think of it, shut in for long months with some unwashed, uncouth, unlearned—Oh, I could go on and on as I conjure up the dreadful picture of such marriages.

  Though I dreaded it much, I promised Celia that I would be with her at the time of the birth of her expected bairn. Some stranger came for me, since Bela would not leave Cee in her fears and anxieties. Believe me, it took a lot of pluck on my part, and more on Angus’s part, to climb into the sleigh of a complete stranger and head out into the whiteout with no sure destination in sight. But people are honorable and helpful, and women are much respected, and I was perfectly safe, being delivered to the Raabs’ door.

  Of the birth I will write but little, Mam. It brought back memories, few of them good. I tried to think about Molly’s birth and the joy, but horrible memories of my wee Angel’s arrival and death threatened me every moment. Oh, how I prayed (and Angus has told me he did the same, here with the children), and somehow I got through. And I was able to be happy for my friends in the safe arrival of wee Howard, who was almost immediately called Howie, whether or not due to his howls I can’t say!

  I stayed another day with the Raabs, and Cee and I had many a good talk. We long to spend more time together. Homesteads, though isolated from each other, are not so, extremely, and it is possible to visit from time to time. Prince Albert, I understand, has its Merrie Minglers Sewing Club, about which Cee and I are somewhat dubious, not being the greatest seamstresses. But we will surely set up some system just as soon as we can find out what other women may have settled in our district.

  You know, of course, that we have no school as yet, and that I am teaching Cammie and will teach Molly. Usually, in these homesteading areas, the community is quick to build itself a school, and this will come along in due time. Right now our children are too scattered. But with spring and better weather, the available land will be taken up, it is believed. And when a school is erected, Mam, can church services be far behind? This thought occupies our thoughts and prayers very much. Many such church services carry on without a minister, with the women (I must admit, sadly) usually carrying the responsibility. Cee and I are willing to do this but feel blessed that in our case we have menfolk who are as eager for spiritual things as we are.

  “I’m hungry, Mummie,” a small voice said at Mary’s knee, and she looked into the eyes—so like her own—of her own dear Molly.

  “Why, of course you are, lassie! It’s time for tea and Da will be in soon. Give me a moment to finish my letter to Grandmam—”

  The birth of wee Howie, Mary wrote lastly , has made me long for another bairn for Angus and me. Seeing Bela Raab with his son made me yearn to place a son of his very own in Angus’s arms. And then, I suppose every woman feels a sort of sadness when she thinks she may have given birth to her last child. The Lord (and Angus) willing, I shall experience that wonderful blessing once again.

  Yr. loving daughter, Mary

  A ccustomed to the world of good breeding, impeccable manners, and refined conversation, Sophia felt at times as though she were living on the edge of chaos, where all she had known was challenged by the untamed, the vigorous, the brash.

  Accustomed to the aristocratic life with its contempt for unbridled emotions, she sensed the ebullience and turbulence that throbbed and pulsed with explosive possibilities, to the very gates of Heatherstone.

  Accustomed to an accepted pattern dividing the genteel from the vulgar, and where the line was not crossed, this new intermingling of classes and crossing of standards seemed, to Sophia, to threaten her personally.

  Far, far removed from Sophia the cabins where mothers raised their children on dirt floors, with low doors, no windows, and rain seeping through sod roofs. Beyond her understanding the home where chairs were tree stumps and a feather bed was considered a luxury. Her dreariest imagination never conjured up a home with a water bucket and dipper and, on a shelf, some coffee, dried beans, flour, salt, and baking powder if you were lucky. Never had she seen an iron pot, frying pan, and coffeepot as the only utensils available to prepare her meals. Canvas or bed sheets never separated her sleeping quarters from those of her children.

  All her life she had known that among crofters impoverished conditions existed, but it was so accepted, so much a part of their way of life, never challenged and rarely complained about, that her personal feelings had never been affronted. Now, though she had not experienced the rawness of life on the frontier, its very existence in thousands of rude dwellings seemed a thing alive, pulsating, pressing, not to be endured unendingly. There was a restlessness in their world, and even behind the massive doors and over the quiet carpets of Heatherstone it made its presence known. Legions of men and women came, like caterpillars creeping, moving, pressing into all the valleys and over all the hills and down all the rivers of the west, and their silence was loud.

  Drinking her tea and planning her next garden party, just out of mind but not out of sense, countless women—no less wise, just as lovely, no better suited—washed on a scrub board beside a soddy, cooked over buffalo chips, swept wooden floors and sprinkled dirt ones, churned their own butter from cows they had milked, spun their own wool from sheep they had sheared, bathed their children in washtubs with soap they had made.

  Of their gardening, canning, slaughtering, curing, and spinning, Sophia knew nothing but sensed much. Their activities, though removed in space, stirred the strong bastions of tradition in some unknown way, and Sophia felt herself to live on the edge of change. And didn’t like it.

  Thank goodness for Hugh and his unchanging observance of all things solid and familiar. Well-bred, well-educated, well-mannered, well-behaved, well-spoken, a gentleman in all respects, Hugh would do nothing more rash than raise a proper eyebrow should the world cave in.

  And so, with grim disregard of the changing times, Sophia took extra care to raise her daughter within the boundaries of decorum and the traditions set by good Queen Victoria. Margaret . . .“Margo” . . . sewed daintily on nothing whatsoever useful, had music lessons and voice lessons, memorized Bible verses (within reason), and had supervised play. There were tea parties, croquet, skits and amateur plays, and, in the winter, sleigh rides and skating.

  Margo took care that all her friends wrote in her autograph book and she in theirs, such things as:

  Be good, my dear, and let who will be clever;

  Do noble things, not dream them all day long;

  And so make life, death, and the vast hereafter

  One grand, sweet song.

  At times she called with her mother and made brief appearances in the drawing room when guests were received. Tessie or some other qualified member of the staff took her for walks and occasionally picnics with friends.

  With money no object and Margo’s training of vast importance, private tutors were hired for her education. Of course the spacious house offered a library of impressive proportion, and Margo had free rein (within reason) to all her father’s historical and scientific material. All instruction, all learning, was laced liberally with moral and cultural lessons so that, to all intents and purposes, Margo might as well have been raised and educated with her mother and father a generation earlier. Well educated in certain ways, she was ignorant of life, especially life in the new land, and peculiarly unsuited to be anything other than a lady of leisure.

  Not unhappy, Margo was never truly happy except in the presence of Nanny Kezzie. Here the outside was forgotten as though it didn’t exist. Here, no matter her state of mind, no matter her age, she found acceptance and love, a love that didn’t have to be earned, a love that was never questioned or doubted. Kezzie soothed her angel child in times of distress, doctored her every illness, and, through it all, dispensed honest, down-to-earth wisdom that was to offer the only balance Margo was to know to her po
intless lifestyle.

  The greatest misery of her young life was suffered with the appearance of a letter from Angus, Kezzie’s son-in-law in the savage and untamed territories (for so Margo supposed them to be).

  Dear Mam , a shaken Kezzie eventually read to her Mr. Hugh, to Sophia, and, later, to Margo. It was the only way she knew to make the child understand why her Granny/Nanny would forsake her.

  After all these years, Mam, Mary is to have another child. While it has always been the longing of her heart, and mine, too, still I am near distracted with concern. As you know, though it has been almost a dozen years since we lost our wee bairn at sea and came close to losing our Mary, the memory has faded but little, and this new pregnancy has brought it all back. Especially since Mary is no longer young. My heart is very sore over the thought of the suffering she must endure.

  You’ve talked often of coming to see us. And yet it has never come to pass; one thing or another has hindered. Now that the railroad is within two hundred miles of us, the trip is easier, and, except for the winter months, it is not the endurance experience it once was.

  I’m asking, Mam, if you will come. Mary will not ask, and yet her anxieties are plain to me. Your presence is needed, Mam. Too, you haven’t seen our Molly and Cammie in all these years. Cam is almost a man, and Molly is budding into a sweet young woman.

  Will you come? We all join in our pleas and prayers that you will do so.

  Margo could not imagine life without Kezzie. And yet she was mature enough to understand the reason for her going. White-faced and silent she watched Kezzie, almost equally white-faced, make preparations to go.