Place Called Bliss, A (Saskatchewan Saga Book #1) Page 20

  O ne quart flour

  One cup sour milk

  One tsp soda

  One-half pound lard

  One-half pound chopped raisins or currants

  Roll two inches thick and bake in a quick oven. Split open, butter, and eat hot.

  Margo had toiled and fussed over the measuring, mixing, and rolling. Now she fretted about the heat of the oven. She took unnecessary peeks at this, her first baking. Tea cakes. Not like any she had eaten previously, she was sure, but a tried and true recipe that Kezzie recommended. Her family, she maintained, loved them.

  “They should be done in time for tea,” Kezzie offered from her chair at the other end of the room. “Come, sit doon and rest. Y’ve been at it since dawn, lassie.”

  Margo tossed aside the floury apron, smoothed her hair at the washstand mirror, and laughed to see the flour on her nose. What a day it had been!

  Monday . . . and washday. Ignorant but game, Margo had struggled through, with Kezzie’s advice and help.

  “For once,” Kezzie had said, “Cam can get on with the chores. Usually he helps with the wash.”

  He still helped. There was no way Margo could hustle the great pails of water needed for the numerous piles of clothes sorted out onto the floor of the kitchen area. The copper boiler alone held about twenty gallons, all carried from the well, filling the boiler, which was placed on the front lids of the wood-burning stove. Galvanized tubs were brought in and placed on a bench, also brought in, and half-filled with cold water to which was added hot water from the boiler. Then, of course, the hard yellow soap had to be shaved and dissolved down in a small pot of hot water. Finally, she was ready to get to the actual washing itself.

  Special needlework was done by hand; wool and silk items were done separately. White goods were put into the tub for scrubbing, then lifted by means of an old broom handle and transferred to the boiler. “Dry clothes are never put into the boiler,” Kezzie explained, “because the hot water sets stains.”

  Soaking, bleaching, starching, bluing, wringing, all were exhausting. Thanks to Kezzie, dinner cooked at the same time—a pot of beans simmered on the back of the same stove that boiled the white clothes on the front lids.

  Pinning a final batch of clothes on the line, Margo declared she would never again toss clothes as casually into the wash as she had done for a lifetime; somehow she’d eke another day’s wear from them! And to think—tomorrow was ironing day.

  Clothes washed and hung and drying, there was the routine to go through in reverse. Out went the water, pail by pail, to be dumped as far away as one could stand the pull on one’s arms; out went the tubs, out went the boiler. There was a wet floor to mop, the stove top to blacken. Only then could Margo draw a breath, collapsing onto a kitchen chair.

  “What’s for dinner?”

  It was Cam, in from the fields. Margo hurried to set out bread and butter and fill glasses with milk to accompany the piping hot beans. “I suppose,” she muttered, half-vexed, half-proud, “I’m bustling ! ”

  The tea cakes, later on, were a brilliant idea. Not only were they designed to teach her some baking skills but the fresh delicacies would call for a few moments of rational, civilized living—teatime. Kezzie was all for it, stating that the pantry, fortunately, held dried currants.

  When the pan was in the oven and Margo had removed her apron and tidied her hair, she turned toward Kezzie with the decision to have the talk, say the things, ask the questions that had to be faced. It was natural and good to drop onto the rug at Kezzie’s feet, smiling up fondly at her dear old nurse.

  “Granny,” she began, using the pet title from childhood, “please. . . .”

  “Yes, wee angel,” Kezzie said tenderly, reaching out a worn hand to fondle the lively curls, brushing them back from Margo’s temple.

  Margo took the hand in her own. “Granny,” she began again, “ever since Papa said what he did—about Heatherstone staying in Galloway hands—and ever since he said. . . .” Margo paused, her throat tightening.

  “What did he say, lassie?”

  “He left me this property here, and he said I’d understand if I cared to, or some such words. I think he said I could find the reason . . . if I cared to. Of course I care to! I can’t go on not knowing. There’s some sort of secret here, Granny. Why . . . why did Papa send me here? Why did he say what he did? You’ve got to be the one and only person to tell me, to shed some sort of light on this puzzle. To give me some sort of healing for the frightful ache I feel.”

  As she talked, looking into the old face and holding the worn hand, Margo saw the face whiten, felt the hand tremble.

  “What is it, Mam? What is it that makes you upset?”

  “Lassie . . . lassie,” Kezzie whispered, “leave well enough alone.”

  “I can’t. I won’t. Tell me, Kezzie, tell me!” There was enough of the noblewoman in Margo’s voice to remind Kezzie of her status and her life of service.

  Kezzie’s throat worked spasmodically; her mouth opened and shut strangely. But no words were forthcoming. Margo gave the hand in hers a little shake.

  “I need to know,” she said, more gently, but still with that touch of authority that Kezzie recognized.

  Trying to speak, Kezzie’s face grew whiter, if that were possible, and words seemed unable to be uttered. Greatly touched, Margo almost backed down. But if Kezzie didn’t tell her, who would? Her desperation drove her to say—and it may have been the pleading note in her voice that moved Kezzie the most—“Gran . . . Gran . . . tell me—”

  Gran tried; it seemed she honestly tried.

  Margo loosed Kezzie’s hand, raised herself from a sitting position to her knees, and leaned over Kezzie’s lap, bringing her young face and beseeching eyes close to the ancient face and the closed eyes.

  “Tell me, Granny—” Margo forced herself to utter what her heart had been struggling with for twenty-four hours, “is Angus Morrison my father?”

  Just before Kezzie’s head fell forward in a half-faint, the withered lips twisted and opened.

  “Aye,” Kezzie whispered, tears squeezing from beneath the eyelids. “Aye, lassie. He is indeed. But lassie . . . he dinna ken . . . he dinna ken.”

  Leaping wildly to her feet, Margo ran blindly from the room, from the house, her mindless passage taking her through the lines of laundry, into the bush.

  With her white clothes trampled in the dirt of the yard, with her proudly made tea cakes burning in the oven, Margo flung herself face down and dug her hands with their telltale curved little fingers into the damp leaf mold.

  Cameron Morrison was her half-brother.

  S upper, what there was of it, was a miserable affair. Kezzie had retreated to her room and refused anything whatsoever, though Cameron brought a cup of tea and a piece of toast to her. It was Cameron who fixed the meal for himself and for Margo, who appeared, shaken, drawn of countenance and curiously specked with what looked like leaf mold, to wash herself at the washstand, ignore her tumbled hair completely, and set herself, at Cameron’s invitation, at the table.

  “What’s wrong, Mam?” he had asked Kezzie earlier.

  “Nothin’ to concern y’rsel’ with, laddie,” Kezzie had answered, and no amount of persuasion could change her.

  “Well, then,” Cameron pursued, “maybe I should get Mother, or Molly—”

  “Nae, lad. There’s nothing anyone can do. I’ll be a’right.”

  Sitting at the table, watching Margo pick at the scrambled eggs and bacon, Cameron was more troubled than ever. That something serious had happened between the two of them he could clearly discern; just what, had him mystified.

  “Something’s gone terribly wrong, Margo,” he said, finally. “I’d be blind not to see it. I can’t imagine what could be so bad between Mam and you. She’s adored you always. I believe you feel the same about her. Can you tell me about it?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t stand to see you both suffering like this. You’re young and strong�
��—Cameron’s voice took on a concerned note—“but Mam is old and nearing the end of her days. I don’t want to have her spend them in misery . . . in fact, it appears that this is going to shorten what time she has left. Isn’t there something I can do . . . you can do . . . ?”

  “I wish there were,” Margo said dully, with the futile wish to turn back the clock, back to a time before she knew the truth about Angus . . . about her mother . . . about herself . . . about Cameron.

  “Just know this,” she said. “I haven’t deliberately hurt Kezzie. It’s nothing . . . nothing I’ve done.” Except to ferret out the truth , she thought to herself. And, feeling as she had toward Cameron, how relieved she should be that the truth had come out before . . . before. . . .

  But the weight on her heart said otherwise.

  “I can comfort her,” Margo said now, “and trust it helps.”

  With that she excused herself from the table and made her way to Kezzie’s room. There the make-believe grandmother and the pretend granddaughter wept in each other’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, lass,” Kezzie whispered over and over. “It would have been best if y’d never known.” And though part of Margo agreed, another part—the secret corner reserved for Cameron—cried out in repudiation.

  It would have been best if she’d never come, she told herself. And yet she had been forced into it by the terms of Hugh Galloway’s will. He had literally taken her life, turned it, shaped it, and changed it forever. He had left her no alternative but to retreat to the bush country and the place he had, she supposed bitterly, prepared for her. Perhaps, knowing Wallace, her father had even hurried her decision by bringing him from Scotland.

  Why had Papa . . . Hugh . . . hated her so? She felt she understood now—he had looked on the proof of his wife’s infidelity every day of the child’s life and suffered. And, finally, he had devised a diabolical scheme to all but annihilate her.

  How had he managed to treat his wife as gallantly and properly as he had? “Gran,” she whispered now in Kezzie’s ear, so close to her lips, “did my mother realize that Papa knew the truth?”

  “He never let on, lass. He knew how much she wanted a bairn. Perhaps he knew he couldn’t father one—his first marriage had been childless, y’know. It may have been the one thing he couldna gi’ her. Never blame Hugh, lassie. He was a great and good mon, with high principles . . . a true aristocrat and gentleman. If you only knew—” But here, it seemed, Kezzie’s lips were sealed. Margo, try as she might, could find no redeeming feature about the man she had considered her father, except that he had treated her decently and raised her properly. Only—at the end, she thought bitterly—to crush and destroy her.

  By morning Margo’s mind was made up; she knew what she must do. And, difficult though it was, the decision brought a measure of peace to her.

  While Cameron was doing the milking, Margo went about the by-now familiar task of fixing breakfast—porridge, of course, for this Scotch family. Cameron, when he came in, gave her a keen glance, and settled himself soberly at the table.

  “Heavenly Father,” he prayed, “as we thank Thee for this food, we also ask Thy guidance and grace for this day. Bless this wee lamb that Thou hast brought among us, and bring her, too, into the fold.” There, he had said it. Boldly and without embarrassment, as seemed to be the Morrison way. His words spelled out Margo’s situation—a lost lamb, a stray without a shepherd—and plainly asked for her rescue.

  He couldn’t have put it better. Feeling so lost, so alone, Margo found a quick longing in her heart for that sheepfold, the safe, protected fold where the Morrisons were sheltered. A swallow of coffee did little to rid her of the lump that had risen in her throat.

  “Cameron,” she said quickly, “I’ve decided to sell the place after all. And you shall have it, if you want it. What do you say?”

  “What I say is,” Cameron answered slowly, “how come?”

  “You want a place; I need the money. It’s that simple. It seems like a perfect arrangement and shouldn’t take long to accomplish. I suppose a trip to Prince Albert will do it. When do you think you can get away?”

  “Whoa!” Cameron said, a frown line appearing between his sunburnt brows. “There’s no hurry, is there? Let’s take time to think this over.” His hesitation over the very thing he had so wanted was strange indeed.

  “There’s no reason to wait. No,” she insisted, “I can’t wait.”

  “You have plans, then?”

  “Ah . . . tentative, I suppose you’d say.” Truth to tell, Margo hadn’t gone that far in her thinking. Leave, just leave! had been the one thought consuming her.

  “Does this mean,” and Cameron’s lips tried to turn up in a hint of a smile, “that you’ve given up on Bliss?”

  “Bliss,” she answered matter-of-factly, as though they were discussing chokecherries, “is where you find it. What’s in a name, anyway? It could be . . . Snicklefritz, as far as I’m concerned.” The foolish name, pulled from the air, brought no smile to Cameron’s face, nor to Margo’s.

  Under the silent study of that dear face, Margo’s eyes stung and her bravado faltered. To recover, she said quickly, “I’ll go see how Kezzie is.”

  “Will you . . . have you . . . told her?”

  “No, and I don’t think I will yet. After we get the business part done . . . when there’s no backing out, then I’ll tell her. I think she’ll understand.”

  “I wish I did,” Cameron said roughly, as Margo hurried away only half hearing, away from the troubled look on Cameron’s face.

  Nor did she hear his urgent, “Father in heaven! Stop her, Lord! Keep her here, if it please You, Father, as it would please me.”

  Their business transaction taken care of, most of Cameron’s hoarded wages transferred to Margo’s account, and arrangements made for payments to be made at harvesttime over the next few years, Margo and Cameron mounted the buggy for one final ride together to Bliss. Though the deed crackled in Cameron’s pocket, and a train schedule crackled in the Chatelaine bag made from the same rustling taffeta as Margo’s skirt, there was no satisfaction on either face and no joy in either heart.

  Put a little crape on the bridle and an armband on our sleeves, was his gloomy thought, and you’d have a right fair funeral cortege.

  It’s as final as a funeral, was her thought, leaving Granny Kezzie, the others, and . . . Bliss, forever and ever.

  “Surely,” he said finally, “you’ve given some thought to what you’ll do, where you’ll go. And surely,” he added, again in that rough voice so unlike him, “we have a right to know. Well, perhaps not a right—”

  “Well, of course you do. You’ve all been most kind.” Could she continue? The lump in her throat made it difficult.

  She delayed further conversation while she took a handkerchief from her bag, coughing delicately into it and, hastily, wiping her telltale eyes.

  But Cameron was pursuing the subject. “You’ll go back to Heatherstone, of course. I understand you have a home there for as long as you care to stay. That’s a sensible idea—”

  “No,” she interjected quickly. “I told you, I’ll never go back to Heatherstone. I think . . .” she was thinking even as she spoke, “I’ll go to Winnipeg. Yes, that’s where I’ll go—Winnipeg, ‘Gateway to the Golden West.’ ”

  “And what will you do in this golden gateway place?” Cameron flicked the reins, the muscles in his jaw tight though his tone was casual.

  “First,” she said, her voice wobbly but gaining confidence as she worked out her future for the first time, “I’ll find a . . . a genteel place to live. With what you’ve paid me and with the small income . . . stipend, it’s called . . . from my . . . from the Galloway estate—” Her confidence seemed to be faltering, along with her voice.

  “There, never mind,” Cameron said, giving the flushed face a keen glance, then reaching over and giving her gloved hand a quick squeeze. He might as well have squeezed her heart, so tight and pained did it seem. But of
course a brother could offer such comfort and kindness to a sister.

  “You’ll have to think of a sensible story to tell Mam,” Cameron said. “It certainly doesn’t sound very sensible to me. Truth be told, it doesn’t make sense at all. Frankly, I’m not a bit sure Mam can survive it. Have you thought of that?”

  “I’m sure she thinks it’s best . . . all the way around.”

  “You’re not making a bit of sense again.” Cameron, now, sounded angry, and he jerked the reins unnecessarily so that the horse jumped, sidled, and settled into a fast trot, taking up the attention of both of the ancient buggy’s occupants.

  There was no use putting off the fateful moment; every day, every hour, every minute made the farewell harder.

  “Granny,” Margo said, settling herself beside Kezzie’s couch, “I’m going away. I’m going somewhere away from all this terrible situation.”

  “Oh, my angel,” Kezzie moaned. “Just when I’ve found y’ again. How can I bear it? First my Mr. Hugh, now you. Couldna y’ linger a wee while? I’ll no be here forever, y’ know, lassie.”

  “Don’t, Granny, don’t. I can’t, I just can’t stay. Don’t you see? That . . . that man—Angus Morrison! I can’t bear to look him in the face!”

  “Ah, lassie,” Kezzie’s voice was distressed, “y’re wrong, sae wrong! Angus is a guid mon, a . . . a Christian mon—”

  “Christian! To let his family believe him to be such a fine, upstanding man, when all the while . . . oh, it’s too wicked to mention!”

  “Lassie, lassie, y’re wrong! You mustn’t think such things! Oh, God in heaven, what have I done?” Kezzie’s cry was pitiful.

  “I despise him! He’s ripped away every true, dear thought of the man I always knew as my father and left in its place himself, a creature who sins and runs away and leaves the consequences for others to suffer! I despise him, I tell you!”

  Kezzie, pale and shaken, was silent for so long that Margo said anxiously, “You see, Gran, why I’ve got to go. I couldn’t hide feelings like that. I’m afraid if I see him again, I’ll spew out all this misery, and then everyone—Mary, Molly, Cameron—will be as miserable as I am. I’ve got to get away and get away soon.”